Grimaldi -- Francescantonio Grimaldi
(1741-1784) Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Francescantonio Grimaldi (Seminara, 10 maggio 1741 – Napoli, 8 febbraio
1784) è stato un giurista e filosofo italiano, esponente dell'illuminismo
italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Opere
3 Note
4 Bibliografia
5 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Nato in una famiglia aristocratica che faceva risalire le
proprie origini alla nota famiglia di Genova, dei principi di Monaco, ricevette
la prima educazione dal padre, il marchese Pio Grimaldi di Seminara, un uomo
colto che aveva cominciato a introdurre criteri di conduzione innovativi nelle
sue proprietà terriere (peraltro non molto estese). Non essendo molto ricco, il
padre lo avviò agli studi giuridici in previsione di una possibile professione
forense. Francescantonio fu pertanto inviato a Napoli, dove si trovava già il
fratello maggiore Domenico; all'Università conobbe il filosofo Antonio Genovesi
e gli allievi di quest'ultimo. Esercitò
per poco tempo la professione di avvocato, che abbandonò presto per dedicarsi
ai grandi problemi sociali e intellettuali dell'età dei lumi. Se il riformismo
di Giannone, per il suo carattere politico, aveva concentrato l'interesse
speculativo sui rapporti fra lo Stato e la Chiesa, la scuola di Genovesi lo
spostò dal campo giusnaturalistico a quello economico-sociale nel tentativo di
indagare sulle cause dell'arretratezza del Mezzogiorno. Come il fratello Domenico, che nel frattempo
si trasferito a Genova ed era stato accolto nel patriziato locale, anche
Francescantonio Grimaldi cominciò a interessarsi alle vicende culturali e
politiche della Repubblica di Genova: volle anch'egli essere iscritto fra i
patrizi di quella città, esprimendo la convinzione che l'aristocrazia genovese
avrebbe dovuto riprendere la funzione, svolta nei secoli precedenti, di classe
dirigente della Repubblica[1]. La sua cultura giuridica fu alla base della
prima opera, in lingua latina, dedicata al diritto testamentario nel mondo
classico[2]. Fu pertanto fautore, all'opposto degli altri illuministi, del
Fedecommesso, istituzione risalente alla Roma antica e prediletta dalla classe
aristocratica. Nel 1775 Francescantonio
Grimaldi divenne maestro venerabile della loggia massonica Humanité, di rito
francese[3], mentre alcuni fra i suoi più cari amici (per es., Domenico
Cirillo, Francesco Longano, Francesco Mario Pagano, Gaetano Filangieri)
aderivano a logge di rito inglese. Nel
1777 Francescantonio Grimaldi si dedicherà ad analizzare la questione
dell'etica. Partendo dalla filosofia antica, egli cercò di analizzare il
rapporto fra l'uomo e la società. Al di fuori della società l'uomo, in balia
dei "sentimenti fisici", diventerebbe un bruto[4]. Tali riflessioni
saranno approfondite nel "Saggio sull'ineguaglianza umana" apparso in
tre volumi negli anni 1779-1780. In opposizione al pensiero non solo di Morelly
e Rousseau, ma anche degli altri illuministi napoletani quali Filangieri,
Longano e Pagano, Grimaldi sostenne che, in natura, gli uomini non erano uguali
e che le differenze, sia fisiche che morali, avevano origini soprattutto
ambientali (per es., il clima, la diffusione delle malattie). La società era
non uno stato di corruzione, ma lo stato "naturale" dell'uomo. La
struttura gerarchica dell'Ancien Régime era giustificata dall'ineguaglianza
degli uomini. La stessa educazione dei popoli non sarebbe riuscita ad appianare
tali disuguaglianze[5]. L'ultima grande
opera del Grimaldi furono gli Annali del Regno di Napoli, un'opera
storiografica sul modello degli Annali d'Italia del Muratori. Grimaldi pubblicò
i primi cinque tomi; la morte gli impedì di completare l'opera che fu
proseguita per altri tre tomi dall'amico Giuseppe Cestari, il futuro autore
della Costituzione repubblicana del 1799[6].
L'ultima attività del Grimaldi fu la Descrizione de' tremuoti accaduti
nella Calabria nel 1783, in seguito al terremoto del 1783, pubblicata postuma a
cura di Cestari, il quale nell'introduzione anonima "Lettera a un
amico" diede notizia della morte del Grimaldi. Opere Francisci AntonI Grimaldi, De
successionibus legitimis in vrbe Neapolitana systema. Pars prima in qua ius
Graecum Neapolitanum vetus, & ius omne Romanum a 12 tabulis ad Iustinianum
vsque absolutissime expenditur, Neapoli: ex typographia Simoniana, 1766 Lettera
sopra la musica all'eccellentissimo signore Agostino Lomellini già doge della
serenissima repubblica di Genova, Napoli, 1766 La vita di Ansaldo Grimaldi
patrizio genovese, illustrata con riflessioni politiche, e morali, e con una
brieve narrazione del governo politico della Repubblica di Genova dalla sua
origine insino all'anno 1528, In Napoli: nella Stamperia Raimondiana, 1769 La
vita di Diogene Cinico scritta da Francescantonio Grimaldi, In Napoli: nella
stamperia di Vincenzo Mazzola-Vocola, 1777 Riflessioni sopra l'ineguaglianza
fra gli uomini. Di Francescantonio Grimaldi. Parte I-III, In Napoli: presso
Vincenzo Mazzola-Vocola, impressore di sua maestà, 1779-1780 (a cura di Franco
Crispini, Vibo Valentia : Sistema Bibliotecario Vibonese, 2000) Annali del
Regno di Napoli di Francescantonio Grimaldi dedicati a Ferdinando IV. re delle
Due Sicilie. Epoca I. Dal primo anno dell'edificazione di Roma sino alla fine
del quarto secolo dell'era cristiana., Napoli : presso Giuseppe-Maria Porcelli
librajo, 1781 Annali del Regno di Napoli di Francescantonio Grimaldi. Epoca II.
Dall'anno 409. dell'era volgare, sino all'anno 1211, Napoli : presso
Giuseppe-Maria Porcelli librajo, 1783 Descrizione de' tremuoti accaduti nelle
Calabrie nel 1783, opera postuma di Francesco Antonio Grimaldi, Napoli : presso
Giuseppe-Maria Porcelli, 1784 (a cura di Saverio Napolitano, Bordighera:
Manago, 1984) Note ^ La vita di Ansaldo Grimaldi patrizio genovese, Napoli :
Raimondiana, 1769 ^ De successionibus legitimis in urbe Neapolitana, Neapoli :
Simoniana, 1766 ^ Nico Perrone, La Loggia della Philantropia. Un religioso
danese a Napoli prima della rivoluzione. Con la corrispondenza massonica e
altri documenti, Palermo, Sellerio, 2006, p. 174. ^ La vita di Diogene Cinico,
Napoli : Mazzola-Vocola, 1777 ^ Fulvio Tessitore, «Francesco Antonio Grimaldi e
l'ineguaglianza». In : Fulvio Tessitore, Nuovi contributi alla storia e alla
teoria dello storicismo, Roma : Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2002, pp.
55-71 (Google Libri) ^ M. A. Tallarico, «CESTARI (Cestaro), Giuseppe». In :
Vol. XXIV, Roma : Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1980 (on-line)
Bibliografia Franco Crispini, Appartenenze illuministiche : i calabresi
Francesco Saverio Salfi e Francesco Antonio Grimaldi, Cosenza: Klipper, 2004,
ISBN 88-88223-06-1 M.L. Perna, «GRIMALDI, Francescantonio». In: Dizionario
Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. LIX, Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana,
1998 (on-line) Giuseppe Boccanera, «Grimaldi Francesc'Antonio». In: Emilio
Amedeo De Tipaldo, Biografia degli italiani illustri nelle scienze, lettere ed
arti del secolo 18., e de' contemporanei, compilata da letterati italiani di
ogni provincia e pubblicata per cura del professore Emilio De Tipaldo, Vol.
VII, Venezia : dalla tipografia di Alvisopoli, 1840, pp. 94-97 (on-line) Melchiorre
Delfico, Elogio del marchese don Francescantonio Grimaldi dei signori di
Messimeri, patrizio di Genova e assessore di Guerra e Marina, In Napoli :
presso Vincenzo Orsino, 1784 (ristampato in Opere complete di Melchiorre
Delfico, a cura dei professori Giacinto Pannella e Luigi Savorini, Vol. III,
Teramo: Giovanni Fabbri, 1904, pp. 223-260). Roberto Ubbidiente, Il pensiero e
l'opera di Domenico e Francescantonio Grimaldi. Tesi di Laurea in Filosofia
italiana. Università degli Studi di Salerno, Facoltà di Magistero, 1986.
Collegamenti esterni Francescantonio Grimaldi, in Dizionario biografico degli
italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata V · D · M
Illuministi italiani Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 309668644 · LCCN (EN) n2015008631 · GND (DE) 1055131671 · CERL cnp00954130
· WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n2015008631 Biografie Portale Biografie: accedi
alle voci di Wikipedia che trattano di biografie Categorie: Giuristi italiani
del XVIII secoloFilosofi italiani del XVIII secoloNati nel 1741Morti nel
1784Nati il 10 maggioMorti l'8 febbraioNati a SeminaraMorti a
NapoliIlluministiMassoniGrimaldi[altre]
Gruppi -- Luciano Gruppi Da
Wikiquote, aforismi e citazioni in libertà. Jump to navigationJump to search
Luciano Gruppi (1920 – 2003), scrittore, politico e filosofo italiano. Indice 1 Il
concetto di egemonia in Gramsci 1.1 Incipit
1.2 Citazioni
2 Bibliografia
3 Altri
progetti Il concetto di egemonia in Gramsci Incipit Antonio Gramsci è senza
alcun dubbio quello che, tra i teorici del marxismo, ha maggiormente insistito
sul concetto di egemonia; e lo ha fatto in modo particolare richiamandosi a
Lenin. Anzi, direi che, se vogliamo vedere il punto di contatto più costante,
più scavato, di Gramsci con Lenin, questo mi pare essere il concetto di
egemonia. L'egemonia è il punto di approccio di Gramsci con Lenin. Citazioni La scienza si ha quando si supera
il dato immediato, l'apparenza; si ha con un salto dialettico. (p. 43) In tutte
le analisi che Gramsci conduce, io trovo la presenza di un filo rosso che le
guida, presente in tutti i Quaderni. (p. 84) Bibliografia Luciano Gruppi, Il
concetto di egemonia in Gramsci, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1972. Altri progetti
Collabora a Wikipedia Wikipedia contiene una voce riguardante Luciano Gruppi Viso
del David Questa voce è solo un abbozzo. Se puoi, contribuisci a migliorarla.
Puzzle stub.svg Categorie: Filosofi italianiPolitici italianiScrittori
italiani| [altre]
grundnorm: Grice knows about
the ground and the common ground – and then there’s the ground norm -- also
called basic norm, in a legal system, the norm that determines the legal
validity of all other norms. The content of such an ultimate norm may provide,
e.g., that norms created by a legislature or by a court are legally valid. The
validity of such an ultimate norm cannot be established as a matter of social
fact such as the social fact that the norm is accepted by some group within a
society. Rather, the validity of the basic norm for any given legal system must
be presupposed by the validity of the norms that it legitimates as laws. The
idea of a basic norm is associated with the legal philosopher Hans Kelsen.
Guastella -- Cosmo Guastella
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Cosmo Guastella Cosmo Guastella (Misilmeri,
28 gennaio 1854 – Palermo, 11 settembre 1922) è stato un filosofo
italiano. Indice 1 Biografia 2 Note
3 Bibliografia
4 Voci
correlate 5 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Nato in un comune dell'attuale area metropolitana di Palermo,
da Vincenzo farmacista e da Marianna Piazza, uno dei quattro figli della
coppia, ancorché di famiglia borghese non ebbe un'infanzia agiata e studiò con
l'ausilio di borse di studio fino a laurearsi in giurisprudenza, presso
l'Università di Palermo, nel luglio 1878. È ritenuto il capostipite del
fenomenismo. Insegnò per poco tempo al liceo Garibaldi di Palermo e poi ad
Acireale. Fu professore di filosofia morale e tenne la cattedra di filosofia
teoretica all'Università di Palermo.
Scrisse, tra le altre opere, Saggi sulla teoria della conoscenza, tre
volumi, (1877-1905), Filosofia della metafisica, due volumi, (1905) e Le
ragioni del fenomenismo, tre volumi, (1921-1922). Collaboratore di Giuseppe Amato Pojero,
partecipò fin dalla fondazione alla vita della Biblioteca filosofica. Ebbe
rapporti con Franz Brentano (1838-1917), filosofo, psicologo ed ex sacerdote
tedesco. La sua dottrina sul fenomenismo è molto diffusa ed apprezzata anche in
Germania. Una scuola secondaria di primo
grado, nel comune natale, porta il suo nome [1]. Note ^ Scuola Secondaria di I Grado “Cosmo
Guastella”, su scuolamediaguastella.it. URL consultato il 6 novembre 2013
(archiviato dall'url originale il 29 ottobre 2013). Bibliografia Domenico
Tubiolo, Cosmo Guastella in sito Comune di Misilmeri, sezione Cultura. Angela
Taraborrelli, «GUASTELLA, Cosmo» in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani,
Volume 60, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2003. AA. VV.,
«Guastella, Cosmo» in Dizionario di filosofia, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia
Italiana, 2009. Voci correlate Fenomenismo Collegamenti esterni Cosmo
Guastella, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia
Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Cosmo Guastella, su openMLOL, Horizons
Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Cosmo Guastella, su Open
Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su Wikidata Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN)
76441029 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 6129 9289 · SBN IT\ICCU\TO0V\092213 · LCCN (EN)
no2005117477 · GND (DE) 1075335507 · BNF (FR) cb12747964w (data) · BAV (EN)
495/162219 · CERL cnp00222911 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-no2005117477
Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia Categorie: Filosofi
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Guicciardini -- Francesco
Guicciardini Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Nota disambigua.svg Disambiguazione – Se stai cercando l'omonimo sindaco
di Firenze, vedi Francesco Guicciardini (politico). Francesco Guicciardini
Ritratto di francesco guicciardini.jpg Ambasciatore della Repubblica di Firenze
in Spagna Durata mandato 17
ottobre 1511 – ottobre 1513 Capo di Stato Pier
Soderini (Repubblica) Cardinale Giovanni de' Medici (Signoria) Membro del
consiglio degli Otto di Guardia e Balia Durata mandato 14 agosto 1514 –
ottobre 1515 Monarca Giuliano
di Lorenzo de' Medici Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici Membro della Signoria
di Firenze Durata mandato settembre
1515 – ottobre 1515 Monarca Giuliano
di Lorenzo de' Medici Commissario pontificio di Modena Durata mandato 5 aprile 1516 – 4 maggio 1519
Monarca Lorenzo
di Piero de' Medici Commissario generale dell'esercito dello Stato Pontificio
Durata mandato 12 luglio
1521 – 25 dicembre 1523 Monarca Leone
X Adriano VI Presidente della Romagna Pontificia Durata mandato 19 marzo 1523 – 1526
Monarca Adriano
VI Clemente VII Dati generali Titolo di studio Laurea in diritto civile Università Università
di Pisa Professione Avvocato
Statua di Francesco Guicciardini, Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze. Francesco
Guicciardini (Firenze, 6 marzo 1483 – Arcetri, 22 maggio 1540) è stato uno
scrittore, storico e politico italiano. Indice 1 Biografia 2 Il
pensiero politico 3 Fortuna
3.1 La
critica secentesca 3.2 Il
giudizio di Francesco De Sanctis 4 Le
opere 5 Note
6 Bibliografia
6.1 Testi
6.2 Studi
7 Voci
correlate 8 Altri
progetti 9 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Dettaglio della statua del Guicciardini. Francesco
Guicciardini nacque a Firenze il 6 marzo 1483, terzogenito dei Guicciardini,
famiglia tra le più fedeli al governo mediceo. Dopo una prima formazione
umanistica in ambito familiare dedicata alla lettura dei grandi storici
dell'antichità (Senofonte, Tucidide, Livio, Tacito), studiò a Firenze
giurisprudenza, seguendo le lezioni del celebre Francesco Pepi. Dal 1500
soggiornò a Ferrara per circa due anni, per poi trasferirsi a Padova per
seguire le lezioni di docenti di maggior importanza. Rientrato a Firenze nel
1505, vi esercitò, sebbene non fosse ancora laureato, l'incarico di istituzioni
di diritto civile; nel novembre dello stesso anno ottenne il dottorato in ius
civile ed iniziò la sua carriera forense. Nel 1506 si concluse la sua
attività accademica; nel frattempo, contrasse matrimonio, contro il volere
paterno, con Maria Salviati, figlia di Alamanno Salviati e appartenente ad una
famiglia politicamente esposta ed apertamente contraria a Pier Soderini,
all'epoca gonfaloniere a vita di Firenze. Guicciardini si curò poco di queste
rivalità, in quanto il suo interesse principale era avere un futuro ruolo
politico, alla luce soprattutto del prestigio di cui godeva la famiglia della
moglie, che avrebbe potuto avere per lui un effetto positivo. Questo
matrimonio infatti funse per lui da trampolino di lancio, garantendogli una
brillante e rapida ascesa politica: con l'aiuto del suocero fu nominato tra i
capitani dello Spedale del Ceppo, una carica non molto significativa di per sé,
ma prestigiosa in quanto a membri insigniti dell'onorificenza. Nel 1508 curò
l'istruttoria contro il podestà Piero Ludovico da Fano, iniziando la stesura
delle Storie fiorentine e dei Ricordi. Esattamente dieci anni prima, ossia con
l'anno 1498, si chiudono quelle Cronache forlivesi di Leone Cobelli che
espongono le premesse degli avvenimenti riguardanti Caterina Sforza[1] e Cesare
Borgia di cui Guicciardini si occupa, nelle sue Storie, per i notevoli riflessi
che hanno sulla politica fiorentina. Nel 1509, in occasione della guerra
contro Pisa, venne chiamato a pratica dalla signoria, ottenendo, grazie
all'aiuto del Salviati, l'avvocatura del capitolo di Santa Liberata. Questi
progressi portarono il Guicciardini anche ad una rapida ascesa nella politica
internazionale, ricevendo dalla Repubblica Fiorentina l'incarico di
ambasciatore in Spagna presso Ferdinando il Cattolico nel 1512. Da questa sua
esperienza nell'attività diplomatica nacque la Relazione di Spagna, una lucida
analisi delle condizioni socio-politiche della Penisola Iberica e anche il
"Discorso di Logrogno", un'opera di teoria politica in cui
Guicciardini sostiene una riforma in senso aristocratico della Repubblica
fiorentina. Nel 1513 fece ritorno a Firenze, dove da circa un anno era
stata restaurata la Signoria Medicea con l'appoggio dell'esercito
ispano-pontificio. Dal 1514 fece parte degli Otto di Guardia e Balia e nel 1515
entrò a far parte della signoria, divenendo, grazie ai suoi servigi resi ai
Medici, avvocato concistoriale e governatore di Modena nel 1516, con la salita
al soglio pontificio di Giovanni de' Medici, col nome di Leone X. Il suo ruolo
di primo piano nella politica emiliano-romagnola si rinforzò notevolmente nel
1517, con la nomina a governatore di Reggio Emilia e di Parma, proprio nel
periodo del delicato conflitto franco-imperiale. Fu nominato nel 1521 commissario
generale dell'esercito pontificio, alleato di Carlo V contro i francesi;
in questo periodo maturò quell'esperienza che sarebbe stata cruciale nella
redazione dei suoi Ricordi e della Storia d'Italia. Alla morte di Leone
X, avvenuta nel 1521, Guicciardini si trovò a contrastare l'assedio di Parma,
argomento trattato nella Relazione della difesa di Parma. Dopo l'assunzione al
papato di Giulio de' Medici, col nome di Clemente VII, venne inviato a
governare la Romagna, una terra agitata dalle lotte tra le famiglie più
potenti; qui Guicciardini diede ampio sfoggio delle sue notevoli abilità
diplomatiche. Per contrastare lo strapotere di Carlo V, propagandò
un'alleanza fra gli stati regionali allora presenti in Italia e la Francia, in
modo da salvaguardare in un certo qual modo l'indipendenza della penisola.
L'accordo fu sottoscritto a Cognac nel 1526, ma si rivelò ben presto
fallimentare; di questo periodo è il Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, in due
libri, scritti fra il 1521 e il 1526, in cui si ripropone il modello della
repubblica aristocratica; nel 1527 la Lega subì una cocente disfatta e Roma fu
messa al sacco dai Lanzichenecchi, mentre a Firenze veniva instaurata (per la
terza ed ultima volta) la repubblica. Coinvolto in queste vicissitudini, e visto
con diffidenza dai repubblicani per i suoi trascorsi medicei, si ritirò in un
volontario esilio nella sua villa di Finocchieto, nei pressi di Firenze. Qui
compose due orazioni, l'Oratio accusatoria e la defensoria, ed una Lettera
Consolatoria, che segue il modello dell'oratio ficta, nella quale espose le
accuse imputabili alla sua condotta con le adeguate confutazioni, e finse di
ricevere consolazioni da un amico. Nel 1529 scrisse le Considerazioni intorno
ai "Discorsi" del Machiavelli "sopra la prima deca di Tito
Livio", in cui accese una polemica nei confronti della mentalità
pessimistica dell'illustre concittadino. In questi mesi completa anche la
redazione definitiva dei Ricordi. Dopo la confisca dei beni, nel 1529
lasciò Firenze e ritornò a Roma, per rimettersi di nuovo al servizio di
Clemente VII, che gli offrì l'incarico di diplomatico a Bologna. Dopo il
rientro dei Medici a Firenze (1531), fu accolto alla corte medicea come
consigliere del duca Alessandro e scrisse i Discorsi del modo di riformare lo
stato dopo la caduta della Repubblica e di assicurarlo al duca Alessandro; non
fu tenuto tuttavia in altrettanta considerazione dal successore di Alessandro,
Cosimo I, che lo lasciò in disparte. Guicciardini allora si ritirò nella sua
villa di Santa Margherita in Montici ad Arcetri, dove trascorse i suoi ultimi
anni dedicandosi alla letteratura: riordinò i Ricordi politici e civili,
raccolse i suoi Discorsi politici e soprattutto scrisse la Storia d'Italia.
Morì ad Arcetri nel 1540, quando da circa due anni si era ormai ritirato a vita
privata. Il pensiero politico Questa voce non è neutrale! La neutralità
di questa voce o sezione sugli argomenti storia e politica è stata messa in
dubbio. Motivo: Fatta eccezione per il primo paragrafo, il testo esprime opinioni
di parte e non supportate da fonti Per contribuire, correggi i toni enfatici o
di parte e partecipa alla discussione. Non rimuovere questo avviso finché la
disputa non è risolta. Segui i suggerimenti dei progetti di riferimento 1, 2.
Guicciardini è noto soprattutto per la Storia d'Italia, vasto e dettagliato
affresco delle vicende italiane tra il 1494 (anno della discesa in italia del
Re francese Carlo VIII) e il 1534 (anno della morte di Papa Clemente VII) e
capolavoro della storiografia della prima epoca moderna e della storiografia
scientifica in generale. Come tale, è un monumento al ceto intellettuale
italiano del XVI secolo, e più specificamente alla scuola fiorentina di storici
filosofici (o politici) di cui fecero parte anche Niccolò Machiavelli, Bernardo
Segni, Pitti, Jacopo Nardi, Benedetto Varchi, Francesco Vettori e Donato
Giannotti. L'opera districa la rete attorcigliata della politica degli
stati italiani del Rinascimento con pazienza ed intuito. L'autore volutamente
si pone come spettatore imparziale, come critico freddo e curioso, raggiungendo
risultati eccellenti come analista e pensatore (anche se più debole è la
comprensione delle forze in gioco nel più vasto quadro europeo).
Guicciardini è l'uomo dei programmi che mutano "per la varietà delle
circunstanze" per cui al saggio è richiesta la discrezione (Ricordi, 6),
ovvero la capacità di percepire "con buono e perspicace occhio" tutti
gli elementi da cui si determina la varietà delle circostanze. La realtà non è
quindi costituita da leggi universali immutabili come per Machiavelli. Altro
concetto saliente del pensiero guicciardiniano è il particulare (Ricordi, 28) a
cui si deve attenere il saggio, cioè il proprio interesse inteso nel suo
significato più nobile come realizzazione piena della propria intelligenza e
della propria capacità di agire a favore di se stesso e dello stato.[2] In
altre parole il particulare non va inteso egoisticamente, come un invito a
prendere in considerazione solamente l'interesse personale, ma come un invito a
considerare pragmaticamente quanto ognuno può effettivamente realizzare nella
specifica situazione in cui si trova (pensiero che collima con quello di
Machiavelli). In netta polemica con Francesco Guicciardini, per alcuni
passi della Storia d'Italia, Jacopo Pitti scrisse l'opuscolo Apologia dei
Cappucci (1570-1575), a difesa della fazione dei democratici, soprannominati i
Cappucci. Fortuna Guicciardini è considerato il progenitore della
storiografia moderna, per il suo pionieristico impiego di documenti ufficiali a
fini di verifica della sua Storia d'Italia. Fino al 1857 la reputazione
di Guicciardini poggiava sulla Storia d'Italia e su alcuni estratti dai suoi
aforismi. Nel 1857 i suoi discendenti, i conti Piero e Luigi Guicciardini,
aprirono gli archivi di famiglia e diedero incarico a Giuseppe Canestrini di
pubblicare, in 10 volumi, le sue memorie. Negli anni dal 1938 al 1972
furono pubblicati i suoi Carteggi, che contribuirono in modo determinante ad
un'accurata conoscenza della sua personalità. La critica
secentesca Antoon van Dyck, Ritratto equestre di Anton Giulio
Brignole Sale, 1627 «L’angolo di prospettiva dal quale si prese a
considerare, nella prima metà del secolo XVII, l’opera guicciardiniana, la
posizione di questa nel giudizio dei lettori secenteschi, sono bene indicati da
uno spirito acuto dell’epoca, A. G. Brignole Sale (1636): «quindi non per
altro, a mio giudizio, porta pregio il Guicciardini sopra il Giovio, sol che
questi, qual pittor gentile, de’ soggetti ch’egli ha per le mani colorisce agli
occhi altrui con vivacissimi ritratti, senza inviscerarsi, la superficie,
quegli per contrario, qual esperto notomista, trascurando anzi dilacerando la
vaghezza della pelle, vien con l’acutezza della sua sagacità fino a mostrarci
il cuore e il cervello de’ famosi personaggi ben penetrato»[3].
All’affiatamento con lo spirito dell’opera guicciardiniana si accompagnò, sul
piano letterario, una migliore intelligenza del suo stile, di cui si cominciò
ad ammirare, superando le pedanti riserve linguistiche, la scorrevolezza,
l’intima misura e precisione pur nel tono sostenuto[4]. Tuttavia, proprio dal
più accreditato esponente letterario del tacitismo, T. Boccalini (1612), fu
formulato un giudizio tra i meno benevoli alla Storia[5].»[6] Il giudizio
di Francesco De Sanctis Copertina di un'antica edizione della Storia
d'Italia Francesco De Sanctis non ebbe simpatia per Guicciardini ed infatti non
nascose di apprezzare maggiormente il Machiavelli. Nella sua Storia della
letteratura italiana il critico irpino mise in evidenza come Guicciardini
fosse, sì, in linea con le aspirazioni di Machiavelli, ma se il secondo agì in
linea con i suoi ideali, il primo invece "non metterebbe un dito a
realizzarli". Sempre nella sua Storia della letteratura italiana De Sanctis
affermò: “Il dio del Guicciardini è il suo particolare. Ed è un dio non meno
assorbente che il Dio degli ascetici, o lo stato del Machiavelli. Tutti gli
ideali scompaiono. Ogni vincolo religioso, morale, politico, che tiene insieme
un popolo, è spezzato. Non rimane sulla scena del mondo che l'individuo.
Ciascuno per sé, verso e contro tutti. Questo non è più corruzione, contro la
quale si gridi: è saviezza, è dottrina predicata e inculcata, è l'arte della
vita”. E poco più in basso aggiunse: "Questa base intellettuale è
quella medesima del Machiavelli, l'esperienza e l'osservazione, il fatto e
lo «speculare» o l'osservare. Né altro è il sistema. Il Guicciardini nega tutto
quello che il Machiavelli nega, e in forma anche più recisa, e ammette quello che
è più logico e più conseguente. Poiché la base è il mondo com'è, crede
un'illusione a volerlo riformare, e volergli dare le gambe di cavallo, quando
esso le ha di asino, e lo piglia com'è e vi si acconcia, e ne fa la sua regola
e il suo istrumento". Nel Romanticismo, la mancanza di evidenti
passioni per l'oggetto dell'opera era infatti vista come un grave difetto, nei
confronti sia del lettore che dell'arte letteraria. A ciò si aggiunga che il
Guicciardini vale più come analista e pensatore che come scrittore. Lo stile è
infatti prolisso, preciso a prezzo di circonlocuzioni e di perdita del senso
generale della narrazione. "Qualsiasi oggetto egli tocchi, giace già
cadavere sul tavolo delle autopsie". Le opere Scritti
autobiografici e rari, Laterza, 1936 Storie fiorentine (dal 1508 al 1509),
rimasta inedita fino al 1859 Discorso di Logrogno (1512) Considerazioni sui
Discorsi del Machiavelli, (1527 - 1529) Ricordi politici e civili Dialogo del
Reggimento di Firenze (dal 1521 al 1526) Storia d'Italia (dal 1537 al 1540)
Scritti inediti sopra la politica di Clemente VII dopo la battaglia di Pavia,
P. Guicciardini (a cura di), Firenze, Olschki, 1940. Le cose fiorentine, R.
Ridolfi (a cura di), Firenze, Olschki, 1945. Carteggi, 17 voll., 1938-72 (voll.
1-2 presso Zanichelli, Bologna; vol. 3 presso Istituto per gli studi di
politica internazionale, Firenze; vol. 4 presso Istituto storico italiano per
l'età moderna e contemporanea, Roma; voll. 5-17 presso P. G. Ricci, Roma) Note
^ "Donna di grandissimo animo e molto virile", secondo il
Guicciardini (Storie fiorentine, cap. XIX). ^ Natalino Sapegno, Compendio di
storia della letteratura italiana, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1963, pp. 94-97. ^
A. G. BRIGNOLE-SALE, Tacito abburatato, Genova, 1643, Disc. IV, p. 133. ^ «Or
chi non vede – scriveva il Tassoni – che questo è uno stil maestoso e nobile,
quale appunto conviensi alla grandezza delle cose proposte e alla prudenza
politica dell’Istorico che le tratta? e che non ostante i periodi sien tutti
numerosi e sostenuti, per esser ben collocate le parole fra loro, e però
l’ordine, e ’l senso facile e piano in maniera che ’l lettore non trova
scabrosità né intoppi, come nello stil del Villani, che va saltellando e
intoppando a ogni passo etc... ». A. TASSONI, Pensieri diversi, Venezia, 1665,
libro IX, p. 324. Il legame del pensiero politico tassoniano con quello del
Guicciardini (incluso, a differenza del Machiavelli, tra gli storici della
«prima schiera» con Comines e Giovio, ossia considerato pari agli antichi; v.
cap. XIII del libro X dei Pensieri) e del Machiavelli è noto: i due fiorentini,
come dice il Fassò, furono «i due poli» a cui si volse la sua riflessione
politica. (Introduz. a TASSONI, Opere, Milano-Roma, 1942, p. 49). ^ T.
BOCCALINI, Ragguagli di Parnaso e Pietra del paragone politico, I, Bari, 1910,
Cent. I, ragg. VI. ^ Walter Binni, I classici italiani nella storia della
critica: Da Dante al Marino, Nuova Italia, 1970, pp. 493. Bibliografia Testi
Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogo e discorsi del reggimento di Firenze, Bari,
Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1932. Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di Italia,
vol. 1, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1819. Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di
Italia, vol. 2, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1819. Francesco Guicciardini,
Historia di Italia, vol. 3, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1819. Francesco
Guicciardini, Historia di Italia, vol. 4, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1819.
Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di Italia, vol. 5, Pisa, presso Niccolò
Capurro, 1819. Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di Italia, vol. 6, Pisa, presso
Niccolò Capurro, 1819. Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di Italia, vol. 7,
Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1819. Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di Italia,
vol. 8, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1820. Francesco Guicciardini, Historia di
Italia, vol. 9, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1820. Francesco Guicciardini,
Historia di Italia, vol. 10, Pisa, presso Niccolò Capurro, 1820. Francesco
Guicciardini, Historia di Italia. Libri 1.-16., In Venetia, appresso Giorgio
Angelieri, 1574. Francesco Guicciardini, Scritti autobiografici e rari, Bari,
G. Laterza e Figli, 1936. Francesco Guicciardini, Scritti politici, Bari, G.
Laterza, 1933. Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. 1, Bari, G.
Laterza, 1929. Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. 2, Bari, G.
Laterza, 1929. Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. 3, Bari, G.
Laterza, 1929. Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. 4, Bari, G.
Laterza, 1929. Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. 5, Bari, G.
Laterza, 1929. Francesco Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine dal 1378 al 1509,
Bari, G. Laterza, 1931. Studi R. Ridolfi, 'Vita di Francesco Guicciardini',
Milano 1982, Rusconi P. Treves, Il realismo politico di Francesco Guicciardini,
Firenze, 1931 R. Ramat, Il Guicciardini e la tragedia d'Italia, Firenze 1953 V.
De Caprariis, Francesco Guicciardini. Dalla politica alla storia, Napoli 1950
(ristampa Bologna 1993) G. Sasso, Per Francesco Guicciardini. Quattro studi,
Roma 1985 E. Cutinelli-Rèndina, Guicciardini, Roma 2009 Voci correlate Famiglia
Guicciardini Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource Wikisource contiene una
pagina dedicata a Francesco Guicciardini Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote
contiene citazioni di o su Francesco Guicciardini Collabora a Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Francesco Guicciardini
Collegamenti esterni Francesco Guicciardini, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on
line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Francesco
Guicciardini, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
Modifica su Wikidata Francesco Guicciardini, in Dizionario di storia, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2010. Modifica su Wikidata (IT, DE, FR) Francesco
Guicciardini, su hls-dhs-dss.ch, Dizionario storico della Svizzera. Modifica su
Wikidata (EN) Francesco Guicciardini, su Enciclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia
Britannica, Inc. Modifica su Wikidata Francesco Guicciardini, in Dizionario
biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su
Wikidata Francesco Guicciardini, su BeWeb, Conferenza Episcopale Italiana.
Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Francesco Guicciardini, su Liber Liber. Modifica
su Wikidata Opere di Francesco Guicciardini, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited
srl. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Francesco Guicciardini / Francesco
Guicciardini (altra versione), su Open Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su
Wikidata (EN) Edmund Garratt Gardner, Francesco Guicciardini, in Catholic
Encyclopedia, Robert Appleton Company. Modifica su Wikidata Propositioni, overo
Considerationi in materia di cose di Stato, sotto titolo di Avvertimenti,
Avvedimenti Civili, & Concetti Politici di Guicciardinii, Lottini,
Sansovini, Venezia, Presso Altobello Salicato, 1583. Opere inedite di Francesco
Guicciardini illustrate da Giuseppe Canestrini e pubblicate per cura dei conti
Piero e Luigi Guicciardini, 10 voll., Firenze, Barbera, Bianchi e Comp.,
1857-67: vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4, vol. 5, vol. 6, vol. 7, vol. 8, vol.
9, vol. 10. Opere, 9 voll., Bari, Gius. Laterza & figli, 1929-36: vol. 1,
vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4,
http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/indice/visualizza_scheda/si150 vol. 5], vol.
6, vol. 7, vol. 8, vol. 9. Predecessore Governatore
di Modena Successore
Giuliano de' Medici 1516
- 1522 Predecessore Governatore
di Reggio Emilia Successore
1517 Predecessore Governatore
di Parma Successore
1517 Controllo
di autorità VIAF
(EN) 89549325 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2364 0471 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\004242 · LCCN
(EN) n79095601 · GND (DE) 118543415 · BNF (FR) cb119062612 (data) · BNE (ES)
XX888989 (data) · NLA (EN) 35156282 · BAV (EN) 495/77257 · CERL cnp00069784 ·
NDL (EN, JA) 00441940 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n79095601 Biografie
Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia Firenze Portale Firenze Storia
Portale Storia Categorie: Scrittori italiani del XVI secoloStorici italiani del
XVI secoloPolitici italiani del XVI secoloNati nel 1483Morti nel 1540Nati il 6
marzoMorti il 22 maggioNati a FirenzeMorti ad ArcetriAforisti italianiFilosofi
della storiaGuicciardini[altre]
Guzzi -- Marco Guzzi Da
Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Un giovane Marco Guzzi (a destra) con
Maurizio Ciampa Marco Guzzi (Roma, 25 marzo 1955) è un poeta, filosofo e
conduttore radiofonico italiano. Indice
1 Biografia 2 La
poesia 3 Il
pensiero 4 Opere
4.1 Raccolte
di poesia 4.2 Saggi
di filosofia e di religione 5 Altri
progetti 6 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Ha trascorso l'adolescenza partecipando alla lotta politica
studentesca, da allievo del Liceo classico statale Giulio Cesare, uno degli
istituti scolastici superiori che più furono coinvolti nella contestazione
giovanile dei primi anni settanta. Dopo aver conseguito la maturità classica
nel 1973, si è laureato in giurisprudenza e successivamente anche in
filosofia. Ha coltivato in particolare
l'interesse per la poesia e la filosofia tedesca, perfezionandosi presso le
Università di Friburgo in Brisgovia e Bonn. Le sue attività principali, nel
campo culturale, hanno spaziato dalla partecipazione a trasmissioni
radiofoniche culturali giovanili alla pubblicazione di numerose raccolte di
poesia, alla redazione di numerosi saggi filosofici, in cui la filosofia
contemporanea, in particolare heideggeriana, si coniuga a una profonda
rimeditazione dei temi della teologia cattolica. A questa attività culturale,
sviluppata anche in numerosi seminari tenuti, dal 1985 al 2002, come direttore
dei seminari del Centro studi Eugenio Montale, si è affiancata la conduzione di
trasmissioni radiofoniche per Radio RAI, fra le quali Dentro la sera, 3131, Lo
specchio del cielo e Sognando il giorno.
Dal 1999 ha fondato e avviato l'esperienza dei Gruppi Darsi-pace, una
ricerca sperimentale di liberazione interiore nell'orizzonte di una riconiugazione
tra fede cristiana e modernità. Dal 2004 dirige la collana "Crocevia"
presso le Edizioni Paoline. Dal 2005
tiene corsi presso il "Claretianum", Istituto di Teologia della Vita
Consacrata dell'Università Lateranense. Dal 2008 è professore invitato nella
Facoltà di Scienze dell'Educazione dell'Università Pontificia Salesiana. Nel 2009 Benedetto XVI lo ha nominato membro
della Pontificia Accademia di Belle Arti e Lettere dei Virtuosi al
Pantheon. Dal 2012 scrive sul blog
collettivo Vinonuovo. Guzzi è sposato e
ha tre figli. La poesia La poetica di
Guzzi, fin dall'inizio, si è concepita come un'esperienza spirituale, una
ricerca di stati più dilatati della coscienza, sulla scia della linea che da
Hölderlin, e attraverso Rimbaud, arriva fino al nostro migliore ermetismo. Di
raccolta in raccolta, la scrittura è diventata sempre più limpida fino ad
approdare a una concezione profetica e meditativa della scrittura in versi. La
parola, da strumento di autoanalisi, diventa così veicolo dell'annuncio di una
rivoluzione teo-cosmologica, oltre che di una svolta interiore: Il mio confine è Dio. È spalancato. Non c'è
cancello o argine, un respiro lega i miei colori ai suoi comandamenti. Il mio confine è il mio promesso sposo. Un bambinetto batte le manine, lancia
coriandoli sul capo del risorto. Il
pensiero Sulla scia di questa evoluzione della sua poetica, la ricerca
teoretica di Guzzi ha affrontato, in particolare nel saggio filosofico La
svolta, significativamente sottotitolato "La fine della storia e la via
del ritorno", il tema del cambiamento epocale che a suo avviso l'uomo è
chiamato a conoscere e riconoscere, dentro e fuori di sé. Questo cambiamento
comporta, secondo Guzzi, l'abbandono di tutte quelle resistenze che impediscono
all'uomo di aprirsi all'ascolto del messaggio cristiano: solo un ascolto
autenticamente rigenerante della parola di Dio, intesa come appello alla
rinascita innanzitutto personale, potrà consentire, secondo Guzzi, il
superamento della crisi individuale e storica in cui versa l'uomo
contemporaneo. La proposta teorica di Guzzi si concretizza, quindi,
specialmente a partire dal volume Darsi pace - Un manuale di liberazione
interiore, in un vero e proprio cammino di autotrasformazione, a partire dalle
proprie difficoltà personali; un lavoro interiore di formazione e di
riflessione, che passa anche attraverso il linguaggio profetico e meditativo
dei maggiori poeti e dei testi religiosi, per raggiungere, attraverso un
percorso di rivelazione, la liberazione nel segno della pace. La teorizzazione
si pone perciò a servizio dei processi concreti di trasformazione interiore
proposti nei Gruppi Darsi-pace. Opere
Raccolte di poesia Anima in vetrina, 1977 Il Giorno, Scheiwiller, 1988 Teatro
Cattolico, Jaca Book, 1991 Figure dell'ira e dell'indulgenza, Jaca Book, 1997
Preparativi alla vita terrena, Passigli,2002 Nella mia storia Dio, Passigli,
2005 Parole per nascere, Edizioni Paoline, 2014 Saggi di filosofia e di
religione La Svolta, Jaca Book 1987 Rivolgimenti, Marietti 1990 L'Uomo
Nascente, Red, 1997 Passaggi di millennio, Edizioni Paoline, 1998 L'Ordine del
Giorno, Edizioni Paoline, 1999 Cristo e la nuova era, Edizioni Paoline, 2000 La
profezia dei poeti, Moretti e Vitali, 2002 Darsi pace, Edizioni Paoline, 2004
La nuova umanità, Edizioni Paoline, 2005 Per donarsi, Edizioni Paoline, 2007
Yoga e preghiera cristiana, Edizioni Paoline, 2009 Dalla fine all'inizio,
Edizioni Paoline, 2011 Dodici parole per ricominciare, Ancora 2011 Il cuore a
nudo, Edizioni Paoline, 2012 Buone Notizie, Ed. Messaggero 2013 Imparare ad
amare, Edizioni Paoline 2013 L'Insurrezione dell'umanità nascente, Edizioni
Paoline, 2015 Fede e Rivoluzione, Edizioni Paoline 2017 Facebook - Il profilo
dell'Uomo di Dio, Edizioni Paoline 2017 Alla ricerca del continente della
gioia, Edizioni Paoline 2019 Dizionario della lingua inaudita - Lingua e
Rivoluzione, Edizioni Paoline 2019 Altri progetti Collabora a Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Marco Guzzi Collegamenti
esterni Il sito ufficiale di Marco Guzzi, su marcoguzzi.it. Il sito ufficiale
dei Gruppi Darsi pace, su darsipace.it. Blog, su vinonuovo.it. Controllo di
autorità VIAF (EN) 85258370 · ISNI
(EN) 0000 0000 7835 6390 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\037884 · LCCN (EN) n88020908 · BNF
(FR) cb12731018k (data) · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n88020908 Biografie
Portale Biografie Editoria Portale Editoria Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Letteratura Portale Letteratura Categorie: Poeti italiani del XX secoloPoeti
italiani del XXI secoloFilosofi italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI
secoloConduttori radiofonici italianiNati nel 1955Nati il 25 marzoNati a
RomaBlogger italianiSaggisti italiani del XX secoloSaggisti italiani del XXI
secoloMembri dell'Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon[altre]
Guzzo -- Augusto Guzzo Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia
libera. Jump to navigationJump to search
Augusto Guzzo Augusto Guzzo (Napoli, 24 gennaio 1894 – Torino, 23 agosto
1986) è stato un filosofo e accademico italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Pensiero
3 Opere
principali 4 Note
5 Bibliografia
6 Altri
progetti 7 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Si laureò all'Università di Napoli nel 1915, dove fu allievo
del neohegeliano Sebastiano Maturi. Dal 1924 al 1932 insegnò filosofia e storia
della filosofia alla facoltà di magistero dell'Università di Torino, fondando
la rivista "Erma", e dal 1932 al 1934 filosofia morale presso
l'Università di Pisa, dove fu anche direttore del seminario di filosofia della
Scuola normale superiore. Nel 1934 tornò a Torino, dove insegnò prima filosofia
morale (succedendo a Erminio Juvalta) e poi, dal 1939 al 1964, filosofia
teoretica (succedendo ad Annibale Pastore). Fondò, insieme con Nicola
Abbagnano, la sezione piemontese dell'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi
filosofici. Ebbe fra i suoi allievi
Luigi Pareyson, Francesco Barone e Valerio Verra. Fu presidente dell'Accademia delle Scienze di
Torino dal 17 giugno 1970 al 25 giugno 1973, anno in cui gli subentrò Francesco
Giacomo Tricomi[1]. Nel 1955 l'Accademia
dei Lincei gli conferì il Premio Feltrinelli per la Filosofia.[2] Morì a Torino il 23 agosto 1986. È sepolto
nel Cimitero monumentale di Torino.
Pensiero Esponente dell'idealismo italiano, si avvicinò all'attualismo
di Giovanni Gentile, interpretato però in chiave di conciliazione con il
pensiero cattolico. È considerato quindi uno dei più grandi esponenti dello
spiritualismo italiano. Opere principali
Il pensiero di Spinoza, 1924 Kant precritico, 1924 Verità e realtà. Apologia
dell'idealismo, 1925 Idealisti ed empiristi, 1935 Agostino e Tommaso, 1958
Giordano Bruno, 1960 Vita di Cordelia Guzzo, 1974 Storia della filosofia e
della civiltà per saggi, 1975 L'uomo, Brescia, Morcelliana; poi Torino,
Edizioni di filosofia, 1947-1964. Comprende: 1. L'io e la ragione, 1947 2. La
moralità, 1950 3. La scienza, 1955 4. L'arte, 1962 5. La religione, 1964 6. La
filosofia, 1964 Con la collaborazione di sua moglie Cordelia Capone, anche lei
filosofa, tradusse in italiano The Idea of Christ in the Gospels or God in Man
di George Santayana, opera di cui pubblicò una recensione nel Giornale di
metafisica, IV, 4 (15 luglio 1949). Pubblicò nel 1963 anche un Alcifrone di
George Berkeley a cura sua e della moglie Cordelia. Pubblicò a partire dal 1950
la rivista "Filosofia", alla quale aggiunse nel 1959 un fascicolo
internazionale, che nel 1969 divenne "Studi internazionali di
filosofia". Nella stessa rivista, in un fascicolo speciale del 1974,
pubblicò una "Vita di Cordelia Guzzo", biografia della moglie, ricca
di aneddoti sulla vita privata e l'attività scientifica dell'autore. Note ^ Presidenti Archiviato il 22 aprile
2009 in Internet Archive. dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. ^ Premi
Feltrinelli 1950-2011, su lincei.it. URL consultato il 17 novembre 2019.
Bibliografia Pietro Fernando Quarta, Augusto Guzzo e la sua scuola, Urbino,
Argalìa, 1976. Google Libri Piergiorgio Donatelli, «GUZZO, Augusto» in
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 61, Roma, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2004. Giletta Giovanni, Filosofia hegeliana e
religione. Osservazioni su Sebastiano Maturi, Ed.Natan, Benevento, 2017. Altri
progetti Collabora a Wikisource Wikisource contiene una pagina dedicata a
Augusto Guzzo Collegamenti esterni Augusto Guzzo, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie
on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Augusto
Guzzo / Augusto Guzzo (altra versione), in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Augusto Guzzo, in Dizionario
biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su
Wikidata Augusto Guzzo, su BeWeb, Conferenza Episcopale Italiana. Modifica su
Wikidata Opere di Augusto Guzzo, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica
su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Augusto Guzzo, su Open Library, Internet Archive.
Modifica su Wikidata Filosofia, Rivista annuale fondata nel 1950 da Augusto
Guzzo. URL consultato il 14 febbraio 2020. V · D · M Vincitori del Premio
Feltrinelli Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 52063064 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 0857 5050 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\024856 · LCCN
(EN) n79006700 · GND (DE) 130623148 · BNF (FR) cb12284028s (data) · BNE (ES)
XX1195682 (data) · BAV (EN) 495/140481 · WorldCat Identities (EN)
lccn-n79006700 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Università Portale Università Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX
secoloAccademici italiani del XX secoloNati nel 1894Morti nel 1986Nati il 24
gennaioMorti il 23 agostoNati a NapoliMorti a TorinoVincitori del Premio
FeltrinelliIdealistiMembri dell'Accademia delle Scienze di TorinoProfessori
dell'Università degli Studi di TorinoProfessori dell'Università di Pisa[altre]
habitus:
hexis
Grecian, from hexo, ‘to have’, ‘to be disposed’, a good or bad condition,
disposition, or state. The traditional rendering, ‘habit’ Latin habitus, is
misleading, for it tends to suggest the idea of an involuntary and merely repetitious
pattern of behavior. A hexis is rather a state of character or of mind that
disposes us to deliberately choose to act or to think in a certain way. The
term acquired a quasi-technical status after Aristotle advanced the view that
hexis is the genus of virtue, both moral and intellectual. In the Nicomachean
Ethics he distinguishes hexeis from passions pathe and faculties dunamis of the
soul. If a man fighting in the front ranks feels afraid when he sees the enemy
approaching, he is undergoing an involuntary passion. His capacity to be
affected by fear on this or other occasions is part of his makeup, one of his
faculties. If he chooses to stay where his commanders placed him, this is due
to the hexis or state of character we call courage. Likewise, one who is
consistently good at identifying what is best for oneself can be said to
possess a hexis called prudence. Not all states and dispositions are
commendable. Cowardice and stupidity are also hexeis. Both in the sense of
‘state’ and of ‘possession’ hexis plays a role in Aristotle’s Categories.
Halesianism: from
Alexander of Halesowen, Salop (on the border with Worcs.).. Grice called
William of Occam “Occam,” William of Sherwood, “Shyrewood,” and Alexander of
Hales “Hales,” – why, I wish people would call me “Harborne,” and not Grice!” –
Grice. English Franciscan theologian, known as the Doctor Irrefragabilis. The
first to teach theology by lecturing on the Sentences of Peter Lombard,
Alexander’s emphasis on speculative theology initiated the golden age of
Scholasticism. Alexander wrote commentaries on the Psalms and the Gospels; his
chief works include his Glossa in quattuor libros sententiarum, Quaestiones
disputatatae antequam esset frater, and Quaestiones quodlibetales. Alexander
did not complete the Summa fratris Alexandri; Pope Alexander IV ordered the
Franciscans to complete the Summa Halesiana in 1255. Master of theology in
1222, Alexander played an important role in the history of Paris, writing parts
of Gregory IX’s Parens scientiarum 1231. He also helped negotiate the peace
between England and France. He gave up his position as canon of Lichfield and
archdeacon of Coventry to become a Franciscan, the first Franciscan master of
theology; his was the original Franciscan chair of theology at Paris. Among the
Franciscans, his most prominent disciples include St. Bonaventure, Richard
Rufus of Cornwall, and John of La Rochelle, to whom he resigned his chair in
theology near the end of his life. Hales wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s
metaphysics, on the multiplicity of being, that Grice found fascinating. Vide
“Summa halensis.”
hampshireism: His second wife was from the New World. His first wife
wasn’t. He married Renée Orde-Lees, the daughter of the very English Thomas
Orde-Lees, in 1961, and had two children, a son, Julian, and a daughter. To add
to the philosophers’ mistakes. There’s Austin (in “Plea for Excuses” and “Other
Minds”), Strawson (in “Truth” and “Introduction to Logical Theory,” and “On
referring”), Hart (in conversation, on ‘carefully,”), Hare (“To say ‘x is good’
is to recommend x”) and Hampshire (“Intention and certainty”). For Grice, the
certainty is merely implicated and on occasion, only. Cited by Grice as a member of the play group.
Hampshire would dine once a week with Grice. He would discuss and find very
amusing to discuss with Grice on post-war Oxford philosophy. Unlike Grice,
Hampshire attended Austin’s Thursday evening meetings at All Souls. Grice wrote
“Intention and uncertainty” in part as a response to Hampshire and Hart,
Intention and certainty. But Grice brought the issue back to an earlier
generation, to a polemic between Stout (who held a certainty-based view) and
Prichard.
hareism r. m. cited by H.
P. Grice, “Hare’s neustrics”. b.9, English philosopher who is one of the most
influential moral philosophers of the twentieth century and the developer of
prescriptivism in metaethics. Hare was educated at Rugby and Oxford, then
served in the British army during World War II and spent years as a prisoner of
war in Burma. In 7 he took a position at Balliol and was appointed White’s Professor of Moral
Philosophy at the of Oxford in 6. On
retirement from Oxford, he became Graduate Research Professor at the of Florida 393. His major books are Language
of Morals 3, Freedom and Reason 3, Moral Thinking 1, and Sorting Out Ethics 7.
Many collections of his essays have also appeared, and a collection of other
leading philosophers’ articles on his work was published in 8 Hare and Critics,
eds. Seanor and Fotion. According to Hare, a careful exploration of the nature
of our moral concepts reveals that nonironic judgments about what one morally
ought to do are expressions of the will, or commitments to act, that are
subject to certain logical constraints. Because moral judgments are
prescriptive, we cannot sincerely subscribe to them while refusing to comply
with them in the relevant circumstances. Because moral judgments are universal
prescriptions, we cannot sincerely subscribe to them unless we are willing for
them to be followed were we in other people’s positions with their preferences.
Hare later contended that vividly to imagine ourselves completely in other
people’s positions involves our acquiring preferences about what should happen
to us in those positions that mirror exactly what those people now want for
themselves. So, ideally, we decide on a universal prescription on the basis of
not only our existing preferences about the actual situation but also the new
preferences we would have if we were wholly in other people’s positions. What
we can prescribe universally is what maximizes net satisfaction of this
amalgamated set of preferences. Hence, Hare concluded that his theory of moral
judgment leads to preference-satisfaction act utilitarianism. However, like
most other utilitarians, he argued that the best way to maximize utility is to
have, and generally to act on, certain not directly utilitarian
dispositions such as dispositions not to
hurt others or steal, to keep promises and tell the truth, to take special
responsibility for one’s own family, and so on. Then there’s Hare’s
phrastic: It is convenient to take Grice mocking Hare in Prolegomena. “To say
‘x is good’ is to recommend x.’ An implicaturum: annullable: “x is good but I don’t recommend it.” Hare
was well aware of the implicaturum. Loving Grice’s account of ‘or,’ Hare gives
the example: “Post the letter: therefore; post the letter or burn it.” Grice
mainly quotes Hare’s duet, the phrastic and the neustic, and spends some time
exploring what the phrastic actually is. He seems to prefer ‘radix.’ But then
Hare also has then the ‘neustic,’ that Grice is not so concerned with since he
has his own terminology for it. And for Urmson’s festschrift, Hare comes up
with the tropic and the clistic. So each has a Griceian correlate. Then there’s Hareian supervenience: a dependence
relation between properties or facts of one type, and properties or facts of
another type. In the other place, G. E. Moore, for instance, holds that the
property intrinsic value is dependent in the relevant way on certain non-moral
properties. Moore did not employ the expression ‘supervenience’. As Moore puts
it, “if a given thing possesses any kind of intrinsic value in a certain
degree, not only must that same thing
possess it, under all circumstances, in the same degree, but also anything
exactly like it, must, under all circumstances, possess it in exactly the same
degree” (Philosophical Studies, 2). The concept of supervenience, as a relation
between properties, is essentially this: A poperties of type A is supervenient
(or better, as Grice prefesrs, supervenes) on a property of type B if and only
if two objects cannot differ with respect to their A-properties without also
differing with respect to their B-properties. Properties that allegedly are
supervenient on others are often called consequential properties, especially in
ethics; the idea is that if something instantiates a moral property, then it
does so in virtue of, i.e., as a non-causal consequence of, instantiating some
lower-level property on which the moral property supervenes. In another,
related sense, supervenience is a feature of discourse of one type, vis-à-vis
discourse of another type. ‘Supervenience’ is so used by Hare. “First, let us
take that characteristic of “good” which has been called its ‘supervenience.’”
Grice: “Hare has a good ear for the neologism: he loved my ‘implicature,’ and
used in an essay he submitted to “Mind,” way before I ventured to publish the
thing!” – “Suppose that we say, “St. Francis is a good man.” It is logically
impossible to say this and to maintain at the same time that there might have
been another man placed exactly in the same circumstances as St. Francis, and
who behaved in exactly the same way, but who differed from St. Francis in this
respect only, that it is NOT the case that this man is a good man.” (“The
Language of Morals”). Here the idea is that it would be a misuse of moral
language, a violation of the “logic of moral discourse,” to apply ‘good’ to one
thing but not to something else exactly similar in all pertinent non-moral
respects. Hare is a meta-ethical irrealist. He denies that there are moral
properties or facts. So for him, supervenience is a ‘category of expression,’ a
feature of discourse and judgment, not a relation between properties or facts
of two types. The notion of supervenience has come to be used quite widely in
metaphysics and philosophical philosophy, usually in the way explained above.
This use is heralded by Davidson in articulating a position about the relation
between a physical property and a property of the ‘soul,’ or statet-ypes, that
eschews the reducibility of mental properties to physical ones. “Although the
position I describe denies there are psycho-physical laws, it is consistent
with the view that mental characteristics are in some sense dependent, or
supervenient, or plainly supervene on physical characteristics. Such
supervenience might be taken to mean that there cannot be two events alike in
all physical respects but differing in some mental respects, or that an object
cannot alter in some mental respects without altering in some physical
respects. Dependence or supervenience of this kind does not entail reducibility
through law or definition. “Mental Events.” A variety of supervenience theses
have been propounded in metaphysics and philosophical psychology, usually
although not always in conjunction with attempts to formulate metaphysical
positions that are naturalistic, in some way, without being strongly
reductionistic, if reductive. E. g. it is often asserted that mental properties
and facts are supervenient on neurobiological properties, and/or on
physicochemical properties and facts. And it is often claimed, more generally,
that all properties and facts are supervenient on the properties and facts of the
kind described by physics. Much attention has been directed at how to formulate
the desired supervenience theses, and thus how to characterize supervenience
itself. A distinction has been drawn between weak supervenience, asserting that
in any single possible world w, any two individuals in w that differ in their
A-properties also differ in their B-properties; and strong supervenience,
asserting that for any two individuals i and j, either within a single possible
world or in two distinct ones, if i and j differ in A-properties then they also
differ in Bproperties. It is sometimes alleged that traditional formulations of
supervenience, like Moore’s or Hare’s, articulate only weak supervenience,
whereas strong supervenience is needed to express the relevant kind of
determination or dependence. It is sometimes replied, however, that the
traditional natural-language formulations do in fact express strong
supervenience and that formalizations
expressing mere weak supervenience are mistranslations. Questions about how
best to formulate supervenience theses also arise in connection with intrinsic
and non-intrinsic properties. For instance, the property being a bank,
instantiated by the brick building on Main Street, is not supervenient on
intrinsic physical properties of the building itself; rather, the building’s
having this social-institutional property depends on a considerably broader
range of facts and features, some of which are involved in subserving the
social practice of banking. The term ‘supervenience base’ is frequently used to
denote the range of entities and happenings whose lowerlevel properties and
relations jointly underlie the instantiation of some higher-level property like
being a bank by some individual like the brick building on Main Street. Supervenience
theses are sometimes formulated so as to smoothly accommodate properties and
facts with broad supervenience bases. For instance, the idea that the physical
facts determine all the facts is sometimes expressed as global supervenience,
which asserts that any two physically possible worlds differing in some respect
also differ in some physical respect. Or, sometimes this idea is expressed as
the stronger thesis of regional supervenience, which asserts that for any two
spatiotemporal regions r and s, either within a single physically possible
world or in two distinct ones, if r and s differ in some intrinsic respect then
they also differ in some intrinsic physical respect. H. P. Grice, “Hare on
supervenience.” H. P. Grice, “Supervenience in my method in philosophical
psychology: from the banal to the bizarre.” H. P. Grice, “Supervenience and the
devil of scientism.”
Harrisianism: philosopher of language – classical. Grice adored
him, and he was quite happy that few knew about Harris! Cf. Tooke. Cf.
Priestley and Hartley – all pre-Griceian philosohers of language that are
somehow outside the canon, when they shouldn’t. They are very Old World, and
it’s the influence of the New World that has made them sort of disappear!
That’s what Grice said!
Hartianism: h. l. a. –
cited by Grice, “Hare on ‘carefully.’ Philosopher of European ancestry born in
Yorkshire, principally responsible for the revival of legal and political
philosophy after World War II. After wartime work with military intelligence,
Hart gave up a flourishing law practice to join the Oxford faculty, where he
was a brilliant lecturer, a sympathetic and insightful critic, and a generous
mentor to many scholars. Like the earlier “legal positivists” Bentham and John
Austin, Hart accepted the “separation of law and morals”: moral standards can
deliberately be incorporated in law, but there is no automatic or necessary
connection between law and sound moral principles. In The Concept of Law 1 he
critiqued the Bentham-Austin notion that laws are orders backed by threats from
a political community’s “sovereign” some
person or persons who enjoy habitual obedience and are habitually obedient to
no other human and developed the more
complex idea that law is a “union of primary and secondary rules.” Hart agreed
that a legal system must contain some “obligation-imposing” “primary” rules,
restricting freedom. But he showed that law also includes independent
“power-conferring” rules that facilitate choice, and he demonstrated that a
legal system requires “secondary” rules that create public offices and
authorize official action, such as legislation and adjudication, as well as
“rules of recognition” that determine which other rules are valid in the
system. Hart held that rules of law are “open-textured,” with a core of
determinate meaning and a fringe of indeterminate meaning, and thus capable of
answering some but not all legal questions that can arise. He doubted courts’
claims to discover law’s meaning when reasonable competing interpretations are
available, and held that courts decide such “hard cases” by first performing
the important “legislative” function of filling gaps in the law. Hart’s first
book was an influential study with A. M. Honoré of Causation in the Law 9. His
inaugural lecture as Professor of Jurisprudence, “Definition and Theory in
Jurisprudence” 3, initiated a career-long study of rights, reflected also in
Essays on Bentham: Studies in Jurisprudence and Political Theory 2 and in
Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy 3. He defended liberal public policies.
In Law, Liberty and Morality 3 he refuted Lord Devlin’s contention that a
society justifiably enforces the code of its moral majority, whatever it might
be. In The Morality of the Criminal Law 5 and in Punishment and Responsibility
8, Hart contributed substantially to both analytic and normative theories of
crime and punishment.
Hartleyianism: British philosopher.
Although the notion of association of ideas is ancient, he is generally
regarded as the founder of associationism as a self-sufficient psychology.
Despite similarities between his association psychology and Hume’s, Hartley
developed his system independently, acknowledging only the writings of
clergyman John Gay 1699 1745. Hartley was one of many Enlightenment thinkers
aspiring to be “Newtons of the mind,” in Peter Gay’s phrase. In Hartley, this
took the form of uniting association philosophy with physiology, a project
later brought to fruition by Bain. His major work, Observations on Man 1749,
pictured mental events and neural events as operating on parallel tracks in
which neural events cause mental events. On the mental side, Hartley
distinguished like Hume between sensation and idea. On the physiological side,
Hartley adopted Newton’s conception of nervous transmission by vibrations of a
fine granular substance within nerve-tubes. Vibrations within sensory nerves
peripheral to the brain corresponded to the sensations they caused, while small
vibrations in the brain, vibratiuncles, corresponded to ideas. Hartley proposed
a single law of association, contiguity modified by frequency, which took two
forms, one for the mental side and one for the neural: ideas, or vibratiuncles,
occurring together regularly become associated. Hartley distinguished between
simultaneous association, the link between ideas that occur at the same
harmony, preestablished Hartley, David 362
AM 362 moment, and successive
association, between ideas that closely succeed one another. Successive
associations occur only in a forward direction; there are no backward
associations, a thesis generating much controversy in the later experimental
study of memory.
Hartleyianism: Joseph – philosopher. Hartmann:
philosopher who sought to synthesize the thought of Schelling, Hegel, and
Schopenhauer. The most important of his essays is “Philosophie des Unbewussten.”
For Hartmann both will and idea are interrelated and are expressions of an
absolute “thing-in-itself,” the unconscious. The unconscious is the active
essence in natural and psychic processes and is the teleological dynamic in
organic life. Paradoxically, he claimed that the teleology immanent in the
world order and the life process leads to insight into the irrationality of the
“will-to-live.” The maturation of rational consciousness would, he held, lead to
the negation of the total volitional process and the entire world process would
cease. Ideas indicate the “what” of existence and constitute, along with will
and the unconscious, the three modes of being. Despite its pessimism, this work
enjoyed considerable popularity. Hartmann was an unusual combination of
speculative idealist and philosopher of science defending vitalism and
attacking mechanistic materialism; his pessimistic ethics was part of a cosmic
drama of redemption. Some of his later works dealt with a critical form of
Darwinism that led him to adopt a positive evolutionary stance that undermined
his earlier pessimism. His general philosophical position was selfdescribed as
“transcendental realism.” His Philosophy of the Unconscious was tr. into English
by W. C. Coupland in three volumes in 4. There is little doubt that his
metaphysics of the unconscious prepared the way for Freud’s later theory of the
unconscious mind.
hazzing: under conjunctum, we see that the terminology is varied.
There is the copulatum. But Grice prefers to restrict to use of the copulatum
to izzing and hazzing. Oddly Grice sees hazzing as a predicate which he
formalizes as Hxy. To be read x hazzes y, although sometimes he uses ‘x hazz
y.’ Vide ‘accidentia.’ For Grice the role of métier is basic since it shows
finality in nature. Homo sapiens, qua pirot, is to be rational.
Heno-theism, allegiance to one supreme
deity while conceding existence to others; also described as monolatry,
incipient monotheism, or practical monotheism. It occupies a middle ground
between polytheism and radical monotheism, which denies reality to all gods
save one. It has been claimed that early Judaism passed through a henotheistic
phase, acknowledging other Middle Eastern deities albeit condemning their
worship, en route to exclusive recognition of Yahweh. But the concept of
progress from polytheism through henotheism to monotheism is a rationalizing
construct, and cannot be supposed to capture the complex development of any
historical religion, including that of ancient Israel.
Heraclitusianism -- fl. c.500
B.C., Grice on Heraclitus: They
told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,/They brought me bitter news to
hear and bitter tears to shed./I wept as I remembered how often you and I/Had
tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky./And now that thou art
lying, my dear old Carian guest,/A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at
rest,/Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;/For Death, he
taketh all away, but them he cannot take. Grecian philosopher. A transition figure
between the Milesian philosophers and the later pluralists, Heraclitus stressed
unity in the world of change. He follows the Milesians in positing a series of
cyclical transformations of basic stuffs of the world; for instance, he holds
that fire changes to water and earth in turn. Moreover, he seems to endorse a
single source or arche of natural substances, namely fire. But he also observes
that natural transformations necessarily involve contraries such as hot and
cold, wet and dry. Indeed, without the one contrary the other would not exist,
and without contraries the cosmos would not exist. Hence strife is justice, and
war is the father and king of all. In the conflict of opposites there is a
hidden harmony that sustains the world, symbolized by the tension of a bow or
the attunement of a lyre. Scholars disagree about whether Heraclitus’s chief
view is that there is a one in the many or that process is reality. Clearly the
underlying unity of phenomena is important for him. But he also stresses the
transience of physical substances and the importance of processes and
qualities. Moreover, his underlying source of unity seems to be a law of
process and opposition; thus he seems to affirm both the unity of phenomena and
the reality of process. Criticizing his predecessors such as Pythagoras and
Xenophanes for doing research without insight, Heraclitus claims that we should
listen to the logos, which teaches that all things are one. The logos, a
principle of order and knowledge, is common to all, but the many remain
ignorant of it, like sleepwalkers unaware of the reality around them. All
things come to pass according to the logos; hence it is the law of change, or
at least its expression. Heraclitus wrote a single book, perhaps organized into
sections on cosmology, politics and ethics, and theology. Apparently, however,
he did not provide a continuous argument but a series of epigrammatic remarks
meant to reveal the nature of reality through oracular and riddling language.
Although he seems to have been a recluse without immediate disciples, he may
have stirred Parmenides to his reaction against contraries. In the late fifth
century B.C. Cratylus of Athens preached a radical Heraclitean doctrine
according to which everything is in flux and there is accordingly no knowledge
of the world. This version of Heracliteanism influenced Plato’s view of the
sensible world and caused Plato and Aristotle to attribute a radical doctrine
of flux to Heraclitus. Democritus imitated Heraclitus’s ethical sayings, and in
Hellenistic times the Stoics appealed to him for their basic principles.
hermetism, also hermeticism, a
philosophical theology whose basic impulse was the gnostic conviction that
human salvation depends on revealed knowledge gnosis of God and of the human
and natural creations. Texts ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, a Greco-Egyptian
version of the Egyptian god Thoth, may have appeared as early as the fourth
century B.C., but the surviving Corpus Hermeticum in Grecian and Latin is a
product of the second and third centuries A.D. Fragments of the same literature
exist in Grecian, Armenian, and Coptic as well; the Coptic versions are part of
a discovery made at Nag Hammadi after World War II. All these Hermetica record hermetism
as just described. Other Hermetica traceable to the same period but surviving
in later Arabic or Latin versions deal with astrology, alchemy, magic, and
other kinds of occultism. Lactantius, Augustine, and other early Christians
cited Hermes but disagreed on his value; before Iamblichus, pagan philosophers
showed little interest. Muslims connected Hermes with a Koranic figure, Idris,
and thereby enlarged the medieval hermetic tradition, which had its first large
effects in the Latin West among the twelfth-century Platonists of Chartres. The
only ancient hermetic text then available in the West was the Latin Asclepius,
but in 1463 Ficino interrupted his epochal translation of Plato to Latinize
fourteen of the seventeen Grecian discourses in the main body of the Corpus
Hermeticum as distinct from the many Grecian fragments preserved by Stobaeus
but unknown to Ficino. Ficino was willing to move so quickly to Hermes because
he believed that this Egyptian deity stood at the head of the “ancient theology”
prisca theologia, a tradition of pagan revelation that ran parallel to
Christian scripture, culminated with Plato, and continued through Plotinus and
the later Neoplatonists. Ficino’s Hermes translation, which he called the
Pimander, shows no interest in the magic and astrology about which he theorized
later in his career. Trinitarian theology was his original motivation. The
Pimander was enormously influential in the later Renaissance, when Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola, Lodovico Lazzarelli, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples,
Symphorien Champier, Francesco Giorgi, Agostino Steuco, Francesco Patrizi, and
others enriched Western appreciation of Hermes. The first printed Grecian
Hermetica was the 1554 edition of Adrien Turnebus. The last before the
nineteenth century appeared in 1630, a textual hiatus that reflected a decline
in the reputation of Hermes after Isaac Casaubon proved philologically in 1614
that the Grecian Hermetica had to be post-Christian, not the remains of
primeval Egyptian wisdom. After Casaubon, hermetic ideas fell out of fashion
with most Western philosophers of the current canon, but the historiography of
the ancient theology remained influential for Newton and for lesser figures
even later. The content of the Hermetica was out of tune with the new science,
so Casaubon’s redating left Hermes to the theosophical heirs of Robert Fludd,
whose opponents Kepler, Mersenne, Gassendi turned away from the Hermetica and
similar fascinations of Renaissance humanist culture. By the nineteenth
century, only theosophists took Hermes seriously as a prophet of pagan wisdom,
but he was then rediscovered by G. students of Christianity and Hellenistic
religions, especially Richard Reitzenstein, who published his Poimandres in 4.
The ancient Hermetica are now read in the 654 edition of A. D. Nock and A. J.
Festugière.
heuristics, a rule or
solution adopted to reduce the complexity of computational tasks, thereby
reducing demands on resources such as time, memory, and attention. If an
algorithm is a procedure yielding a correct solution to a problem, then a
heuristic procedure may not reach a solution even if there is one, or may
provide an incorrect answer. The reliability of heuristics varies between
domains; the resulting biases are predictable, and provide information about
system design. Chess, for example, is a finite game with a finite number of
possible positions, but there is no known algorithm for finding the optimal
move. Computers and humans both employ heuristics in evaluating intermediate
moves, relying on a few significant cues to game quality, such as safety of the
king, material balance, and center control. The use of these criteria
simplifies the problem, making it computationally tractable. They are heuristic
guides, reliable but limited in success. There is no guarantee that the result
will be the best move or even good. They are nonetheless satisfactory for
competent chess. Work on human judgment indicates a similar moral. Examples of
judgmental infelicities support the view that human reasoning systematically
violates standards for statistical reasoning, ignoring base rates, sample size,
and correlations. Experimental results suggest that humans utilize judgmental
heuristics in gauging probabilities, such as representativeness, or the degree
to which an individual or event resembles a prototypical member of a category.
Such heuristics produce reasonable judgments in many cases, but are of limited
validity when measured by a Bayesian standard. Judgmental heuristics are biased
and subject to systemic errors. Experimental support for the importance of
these heuristics depends on cases in which subjects deviate from the normative
standard.
hierarchy, a division of mathematical
objects into subclasses in accordance with an ordering that reflects their complexity.
Around the turn of the century, analysts interested in the “descriptive set
theory” of the real numbers defined and studied two systems of classification
for sets of reals, the Borel (due to Emil Borel) and the G hierarchies. In the
1940s, logicians interested in recursion and definability (most importantly,
Stephen Kleene) introduced and studied other hierarchies (the arithmetic, the
hyperarithmetic, and the analytical hierarchies) of reals (identified with sets
of natural numbers) and of sets of reals; the relations between this work and
the earlier work were made explicit in the 1950s by J. Addison. Other sorts of
hierarchies have been introduced in other corners of logic. All these so-called
hierarchies have at least this in common: they divide a class of mathematical
objects into subclasses subject to a natural well-founded ordering (e.g., by
subsethood) that reflects the complexity (in a sense specific to the hierarchy
under consideration) of the objects they contain. What follows describes several
hierarchies from the study of definability. (For more historical and
mathematical information see Descriptive Set Theory by Y. Moschovakis,
North-Holland Publishing Co., 1980.) (1) Hierarchies of formulas. Consider a
formal language L with quantifiers ‘E’ and ‘D’. Given a set B of formulas in L,
we inductively define a hierarchy that treats the members of B as “basic.” Set
P0 % S0 % B. Suppose sets Pn and Sn of formulas have been defined. Let Pn!1 %
the set of all formulas of the form Q1u1 . . . Qmumw when u1, . . . , um are
distinct variables, Q1, . . . , Qm are all ‘E’, m M 1, and w 1 Sn. Let Sn+1 %
the set of all formulas of that form for Q1, . . . , Qm all ‘D’, and w 1 Pn.
Here are two such hierarchies for languages of arithmetic. Take the logical constants
to be truthfunctions, ‘E’ and ‘D’. (i) Let L0 % the first-order language of
arithmetic, based on ‘%’, a two-place predicate-constant ‘‹’, an
individual-constant for 0, functionconstants for successor, addition, and
multiplication; ‘first-order’ means that bound variables are all first-order
(ranging over individuals); we’ll allow free second-order variables (ranging
over properties or sets of individuals). Let B % the set of bounded formulas,
i.e. those formed from atomic formulas using connectives and bounded
quantification: if w is bounded so are Eu(u ‹ t / w) and Du(u ‹ t & w).
(ii) Let L1 % the second-order language of arithmetic (formed from L0 by
allowing bound second-order variables); let B % the set of formulas in which no
second-order variable is bound, and take all u1, . . . , um as above to be
second-order variables. (2) Hierarchies of definable sets. (i) The Arithmetic
Hierarchy. For a set of natural numbers (call such a thing ‘a real’) A : A 1 P0
n [ or S0 n ] if and only if A is defined over the standard model of arithmetic
(i.e., with the constant for 0 assigned to 0, etc., and with the first-order
variables ranging over the natural numbers) by a formula of L0 in Pn
[respectively Sn] as described in (1.i). Set D0 n % P0 n Thus: In fact, all
these inclusions are proper. This hierarchy classifies the reals simple enough
to be defined by arithmetic formulas. Example: ‘Dy x % y ! y’ defines the set
even of even natural numbers; the formula 1 S1, so even 1 S0 1; even is also
defined by a formula in P1; so even 1 P0 1, giving even 1 D0 1. In fact, S0 1 %
the class of recursively enumerable reals, and D0 1 % the class of recursive
reals. The classification of reals under the arithmetic hierarchy reflects
complexity of defining formulas; it differs from classification in terms of a
notion of degree of unsolvability, that reflecting a notion of comparative
computational complexity; but there are connections between these
classifications. The Arithmetic Hierarchy extends to sets of reals (using a free
second-order variable in defining sentences). Example: ‘Dx (Xx & Dy y % x !
x)’ 1 S1 and defines the set of those reals with an even number; so that set 1
S0 1.The Analytical Hierarchy. Given a real A : A 1 P1 n [S1 1] if and only if
A is defined (over the standard model of arithmetic with second-order variables
ranging over all sets of natural numbers) by a formula of L1 in Pn
(respectively Sn) as described in (1.ii); D1 n % P1 n 3 S1 n. Similarly for a
set of reals. The inclusions pictured above carry over, replacing superscripted
0’s by 1’s. This classifies all reals and sets of reals simple enough to have
analytical (i.e., second-order arithmetic) definitions.The subscripted ‘n’ in
‘P0 n’, etc., ranged over natural numbers. But the Arithmetic Hierarchy is
extended “upward” into the transfinite by the ramified-analytical hierarchy.
Let R0 % the class of all arithmetical reals. For an ordinal a let Ra!1 % the
class of all sets of reals definable by formulas of L1 in which second-order
variables range only over reals in Ra – this constraint imposes ramification.
For a limit-ordinal l, let Rl % UaThe above hierarchies arise in arithmetic.
Similar hierarchies arise in pure set theory; e.g. by transferring the
“process” that produced the ramified analytical hierarchy to pure set theory we
obtain the constructible hierarchy, defined by Gödel in his 1939 monograph on
the continuum hypothesis.
hippocrates, philosopher from Cos. Some
sixty treatises survive under his name, but it is doubtful whether he was the author
of any of them. The Hippocratic corpus contains material from a wide variety of
standpoints, ranging from an extreme empiricism that rejected all grand theory
(On Ancient Medicine) to highly speculative theoretical physiology (On the
Nature of Man, On Regimen). Many treatises were concerned with the accurate
observation and classification of diseases (Epidemics) rather than treatment.
Some texts (On the Art) defended the claims of medicine to scientific status
against those who pointed to its inaccuracies and conjectural status; others
(Oath, On Decorum) sketch a code of professional ethics. Almost all his
treatises were notable for their materialism and rejection of supernatural
“explanations”; their emphasis on observation; and their concern with the
isolation of causal factors. A large number of texts are devoted to gynecology.
The Hippocratic corpus became the standard against which later doctors measured
themselves; and, via Galen’s rehabilitation and extension of Hippocratic
method, it became the basis for Western medicine for two millennia.
Historia -- historicism, the doctrine that
knowledge of human affairs has an irreducibly historical character and that
there can be no ahistorical perspective for an understanding of human nature
and society. What is needed instead is a philosophical explication of
historical knowledge that will yield the rationale for all sound knowledge of
human activities. So construed, historicism is a philosophical doctrine
originating in the methodological and epistemological presuppositions of
critical historiography. In the mid-nineteenth century certain German thinkers
(Dilthey most centrally), reacting against positivist ideals of science and
knowledge, rejected scientistic models of knowledge, replacing them with historical
ones. They applied this not only to the discipline of history but to economics,
law, political theory, and large areas of philosophy. Initially concerned with
methodological issues in particular disciplines, historicism, as it developed,
sought to work out a common philosophical doctrine that would inform all these
disciplines. What is essential to achieve knowledge in the human sciences is to
employ the ways of understanding used in historical studies. There should in
the human sciences be no search for natural laws; knowledge there will be
interpretive and rooted in concrete historical occurrences. As such it will be
inescapably perspectival and contextual (contextualism). This raises the issue
of whether historicism is a form of historical relativism. Historicism appears
to be committed to the thesis that what for a given people is warrantedly
assertible is determined by the distinctive historical perspective in which
they view life and society. The stress on uniqueness and concrete specificity and
the rejection of any appeal to universal laws of human development reinforce
that. But the emphasis on cumulative development into larger contexts of our
historical knowledge puts in doubt an identification of historicism and
historical relativism. The above account of historicism is that of its main
proponents: Meinecke, Croce, Collingwood, Ortega y Gasset, and Mannheim. But in
the twentieth century, with Popper and Hayek, a very different conception of
historicism gained some currency. For them, to be a historicist is to believe
that there are “historical laws,” indeed even a “law of historical
development,” such that history has a pattern and even an end, that it is the
central task of social science to discover it, and that these laws should
determine the direction of political action and social policy. They attributed
(incorrectly) this doctrine to Marx but rightly denounced it as pseudo-science.
However, some later Marxists (Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci) were historicists in
the original nonPopperian sense as was the critical theorist Adorno and hermeneuticists
such as Gadamer.
heterological: Grice and Thomson go heterological. Grice was
fascinated by Baron Russell’s remarks on heterological and its implicate. Grice
is particularly interested in Russell’s philosophy because of the usual Oxonian
antipathy towards his type of philosophising. Being an irreverent
conservative rationalist, Grice found in Russell a good point for
dissent! If paradoxes were always sets of propositions or arguments or conclusions,
they would always be meaningful. But some paradoxes are semantically
flawed and some have answers that are backed by a pseudo-argument employing a
defective lemma that lacks a truth-value. Grellings paradox, for instance,
opens with a distinction between autological and heterological words. An
autological word describes itself, e.g., polysyllabic is polysllabic, English
is English, noun is a noun, etc. A heterological word does not describe
itself, e.g., monosyllabic is not monosyllabic, Chinese is not Chinese, verb is
not a verb, etc. Now for the riddle: Is heterological heterological
or autological? If heterological is heterological, since it describes
itself, it is autological. But if heterological is autological, since it
is a word that does not describe itself, it is heterological. The common
solution to this puzzle is that heterological, as defined by Grelling, is not
what Grice a genuine predicate ‒ Gricing is!In other words, Is
heterological heterological? is without meaning. That does not mean that an
utterer, such as Baron Russell, may implicate that he is being very witty by
uttering the Grelling paradox! There can be no predicate that applies to all
and only those predicates it does not apply to for the same reason that there
can be no barber who shaves all and only those people who do not shave
themselves. Grice seems to be relying on his friend at Christ Church,
Thomson in On Some Paradoxes, in the same volume where Grice published his
Remarks about the senses, Analytical Philosophy, Butler (ed.), Blackwell,
Oxford, 104–119. Grice thought that Thomson was a genius, if ever there is
one! Plus, Grice thought that, after St. Johns, Christ Church was the second
most beautiful venue in the city of dreaming spires. On top, it is what makes
Oxford a city, and not, as villagers call it, a town. Refs.: the main source is
Grice’s essay on ‘heterologicality,’ but the keyword ‘paradox’ is useful, too,
especially as applied to Grice’s own paradox and to what, after Moore, Grice
refers to as the philosopher’s paradoxes. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
hobbesian
implicatura -- hobbes:
“Hobbes is a Griceian” – Grice. Grice was a member of the Hobbes Society -- Thomas.
English philosopher whose writings, especially the English version of Leviathan
(1651), strongly influenced all of subsequent English moral and political
philosophy. He also wrote a trilogy comprising De Cive (1642; English version,
Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, 1651), De Corpore
(On the Body, 1655), and De Homine (On Man, 1658). Together with Leviathan (the
revised Latin version of which was published in 1668), these are his major
philosophical works. However, an early draft of his thoughts, The Elements of
Law, Natural and Political(also known as Human Nature and De Corpore Politico),
was published without permission in 1650. Many of the misinterpretations of
Hobbes’s views on human nature come from mistaking this early work as
representing his mature views. Hobbes was influential not only in England, but
also on the Continent. He is the author of the third set of objections to
Descartes’s Meditations. Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus was deeply
influenced by Hobbes, not only in its political views but also in the way it
dealt with Scripture. Hobbes was not merely a philosopher; he was mathematical
tutor to Charles II and also a classical scholar. His first published work was
a translation of Thucydides (1628), and among his latest, about a half-century
later, were translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Hobbes’s philosophical
views have a remarkably contemporary sound. In metaphysics, he holds a strong
materialist view, sometimes viewing mental phenomena as epiphenomenal, but
later moving toward a reductive or eliminative view. In epistemology he held a
sophisticated empiricism, which emphasized the importance of language for
knowledge. If not the originator of the contemporary compatibilist view of the
relationship between free will and determinism (see The Questions Concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chance, 1656), he was one of the primary influences. He
also was one of the most important philosophers of language, explicitly noting
that language is used not only to describe the world but to express attitudes
and, performatively, to make promises and contracts. One of Hobbes’s
outstanding characteristics is his intellectual honesty. Though he may have
been timid (he himself claims that he was, explaining that his mother gave
birth to him because of fright over the coming of the Spanish Armada), his
writing shows no trace of it. During more than half his long lifetime he
engaged in many philosophical controversies, which required considerably more
courage in Hobbes’s day than at present. Both the Roman Catholic church and
Oxford University banned the reading of his books and there was talk not only
of burning his books but of burning Hobbes himself. An adequate interpretation
of Hobbes requires careful attention to his accounts of human nature, reason,
morality, and law. Although he was not completely consistent, his moral and
political philosophy is remarkably coherent. His political theory is often
thought to require an egoistic psychology, whereas it actually requires only
that most persons be concerned with their own self-interest, especially their
own preservation. It does not require that most not be concerned with other
persons as well. All that Hobbes denies is an undifferentiated natural
benevolence: “For if by nature one man should love another (that is) as man,
there could no reason be returned why every man should not equally love every
man, as being equally man.” His argument is that limited benevolence is not an
adequate foundation upon which to build a state. Hobbes’s political theory does
not require the denial of limited benevolence, he indeed includes benevolence
in his list of the passions in Leviathan: “Desire of good to another,
BENEVOLENCE, GOOD WILL, CHARITY. If to man generally, GOOD NATURE.”
Psychological egoism not only denies benevolent action, it also denies action
done from a moral sense, i.e., action done because one believes it is the
morally right thing to do. But Hobbes denies neither kind of action. But when
the words [’just’ and ‘unjust’] are applied to persons, to be just signifies as
much as to be delighted in just dealing, to study how to do righteousness, or
to endeavor in all things to do that which is just; and to be unjust is to
neglect righteous dealing, or to think it is to be measured not according to my
contract, but some present benefit. Hobbes’s pessimism about the number of just
people is primarily due to his awareness of the strength of the passions and
his conviction that most people have not been properly educated and
disciplined. Hobbes is one of the few philosophers to realize that to talk of
that part of human nature which involves the passions is to talk about human
populations. He says, “though the wicked were fewer than the righteous, yet
because we cannot distinguish them, there is a necessity of suspecting,
heeding, anticipating, subjugating, self-defending, ever incident to the most
honest and fairest conditioned.” Though we may be aware of small communities in
which mutual trust and respect make law enforcement unnecessary, this is never
the case when we are dealing with a large group of people. Hobbes’s point is that
if a large group of people are to live together, there must be a common power
set up to enforce the rules of the society. That there is not now, nor has
there ever been, any large group of people living together without such a
common power is sufficient to establish his point. Often overlooked is Hobbes’s
distinction between people considered as if they were simply animals, not
modified in any way by education or discipline, and civilized people. Though
obviously an abstraction, people as animals are fairly well exemplified by
children. “Unless you give children all they ask for, they are peevish, and
cry, aye and strike their parents sometimes; and all this they have from
nature.” In the state of nature, people have no education or training, so there
is “continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, [is]
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But real people have been brought
up in families; they are, at least to some degree, civilized persons, and how
they will behave depends on how they are brought up. Hobbes does not say that
society is a collection of misfits and that this is why we have all the trouble
that we do – a position congenial to the psychological egoist. But he does
acknowledge that “many also (perhaps most men) either through defect of mind,
or want of education, remain unfit during the whole course of their lives; yet
have they, infants as well as those of riper years, a human nature; wherefore
man is made fit for society not by nature, but by education.” Education and
training may change people so that they act out of genuine moral motives. That
is why it is one of the most important functions of the sovereign to provide
for the proper training and education of the citizens. In the current debate
between nature and nurture, on the question of behavior Hobbes would come down
strongly on the side of nurture. Hobbes’s concept of reason has more in common
with the classical philosophical tradition stemming from Plato and Aristotle,
where reason sets the ends of behavior, than with the modern tradition stemming
from Hume where the only function of reason is to discover the best means to
ends set by the passions. For Hobbes, reason is very complex; it has a goal,
lasting selfpreservation, and it seeks the way to this goal. It also discovers
the means to ends set by the passions, but it governs the passions, or tries
to, so that its own goal is not threatened. Since its goal is the same in all
people, it is the source of rules applying to all people. All of this is
surprisingly close to the generally accepted account of rationality. We
generally agree that those who follow their passions when they threaten their
life are acting irrationally. We also believe that everyone always ought to act
rationally, though we know that few always do so. Perhaps it was just the
closeness of Hobbes’s account of reason to the ordinary view of the matter that
has led to its being so completely overlooked. The failure to recognize that
the avoidance of violent death is the primary goal of reason has distorted
almost all accounts of Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy, yet it is a
point on which Hobbes is completely clear and consistent. He explicitly says
that reason “teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution [mortem
violentam] as the greatest mischief that can arrive to nature.” He continually
points out that it is a dictate of right reason to seek peace when possible
because people cannot “expect any lasting preservation continuing thus in the
state of nature, that is, of war.” And he calls temperance and fortitude
precepts of reason because they tend to one’s preservation. It has not
generally been recognized that Hobbes regarded it as an end of reason to avoid
violent death because he often talks of the avoidance of death in a way that
makes it seem merely an object of a passion. But it is reason that dictates
that one take all those measures necessary for one’s preservation; peace if
possible, if not, defense. Reason’s dictates are categorical; it would be a
travesty of Hobbes’s view to regard the dictates of reason as hypothetical
judgments addressed to those whose desire for their own preservation happens to
be greater than any conflicting desire. He explicitly deplores the power of the
irrational appetites and expressly declares that it is a dictate of reason that
one not scorn others because “most men would rather lose their lives (that I
say not, their peace) than suffer slander.” He does not say if you would rather
die than suffer slander, it is rational to do so. Hobbes, following Aristotle,
regards morality as concerned with character traits or habits. Since morality
is objective, it is only those habits that are called good by reason that are
moral virtues. “Reason declaring peace to be good, it follows by the same reason,
that all the necessary means to peace be good also; and therefore that modesty,
equity, trust, humanity, mercy (which we have demonstrated to be necessary to
peace), are good manners or habits, that is, virtues.” Moral virtues are those
habits of acting that the reason of all people must praise. It is interesting
to note that it is only in De Homine that Hobbes explicitly acknowledges that
on this account, prudence, temperance, and courage are not moral virtues. In De
Cive he distinguishes temperance and fortitude from the other virtues and does
not call them moral, but he does not explicitly deny that they are moral
virtues. But in De Homine, he explicitly points out that one should not “demand
that the courage and prudence of the private man, if useful only to himself, be
praised or held as a virtue by states or by any other men whatsoever to whom
these same are not useful.” That morality is determined by reason and that
reason has as its goal self-preservation seems to lead to the conclusion that
morality also has as its goal self-preservation. But it is not the
selfpreservation of an individual person that is the goal of morality, but of
people as citizens of a state. That is, moral virtues are those habits of
persons that make it rational for all other people to praise them. These habits
are not those that merely lead to an individual’s own preservation, but to the
preservation of all; i.e., to peace and a stable society. Thus, “Good
dispositions are those that are suitable for entering into civil society; and
good manners (that is, moral virtues) are those whereby what was entered upon
can be best preserved.” And in De Cive, when talking of morality, he says, “The
goodness of actions consist[s] in this, that it [is] in order to peace, and the
evil in this, that it [is] related to discord.” The nature of morality is a
complex and vexing question. If, like Hobbes, we regard morality as applying
primarily to those manners or habits that lead to peace, then his view seems
satisfactory. It yields, as he notes, all of the moral virtues that are
ordinarily considered such, and further, it allows one to distinguish courage,
prudence, and temperance from the moral virtues. Perhaps most important, it
provides, in almost self-evident fashion, the justification of morality. For
what is it to justify morality but to show that reason favors it? Reason,
seeking self-preservation, must favor morality, which seeks peace and a stable
society. For reason knows that peace and a stable society are essential for
lasting preservation. This simple and elegant justification of morality does
not reduce morality to prudence; rather it is an attempt, in a great
philosophical tradition stemming from Plato, to reconcile reason or rational
self-interest and morality. In the state of nature every person is and ought to
be governed only by their own reason. Reason dictates that they seek peace,
which yields the laws of nature, but it also allows them to use any means they
believe will best preserve themselves, which is what Hobbes calls The Right of
Nature. Hobbes’s insight is to see that, except when one is in clear and
present danger, in which case one has an inalienable right to defend oneself,
the best way to guarantee one’s longterm preservation is to give up one’s right
to act on one’s own decisions about what is the best way to guarantee one’s
long-term preservation and agree to act on the decisions of that single person
or group who is the sovereign. If all individuals and groups are allowed to act
on the decisions they regard as best, not accepting the commands of the
sovereign, i.e., the laws, as the overriding guide for their actions, the
result is anarchy and civil war. Except in rare and unusual cases, uniformity
of action following the decision of the sovereign is more likely to lead to
long-term preservation than diverse actions following diverse decisions. And
this is true even if each one of the diverse decisions, if accepted by the
sovereign as its decision, would have been more likely to lead to long-term
preservation than the actual decision that the sovereign made. This argument
explains why Hobbes holds that sovereigns cannot commit injustice. Only
injustice can properly be punished. Hobbes does not deny that sovereigns can be
immoral, but he does deny that the immorality of sovereigns can properly be
punished. This is important, for otherwise any immoral act by the sovereign
would serve as a pretext for punishing the sovereign, i.e., for civil war. What
is just and unjust is determined by the laws of the state, what is moral and
immoral is not. Morality is a wider concept than that of justice and is
determined by what leads to peace and stability. However, to let justice be
determined by what the reason of the people takes to lead to peace and
stability, rather than by what the reason of the sovereign decides, would be to
invite discord and civil war, which is contrary to the goal of morality: a
stable society and peace. One can create an air of paradox by saying that for
Hobbes it is immoral to attempt to punish some immoral acts, namely, those of
the sovereign. Hobbes is willing to accept this seeming paradox for he never
loses sight of the goal of morality, which is peace. To summarize Hobbes’s
system: people, insofar as they are rational, want to live out their natural
lives in peace and security. To do this, they must come together into cities or
states of sufficient size to deter attack by any group. But when people come
together in such a large group there will always be some that cannot be
trusted, and thus it is necessary to set up a government with the power to make
and enforce laws. This government, which gets both its right to govern and its
power to do so from the consent of the governed, has as its primary duty the
people’s safety. As long as the government provides this safety the citizens
are obliged to obey the laws of the state in all things. Thus, the rationality
of seeking lasting preservation requires seeking peace; this in turn requires
setting up a state with sufficient power to keep the peace. Anything that threatens
the stability of the state is to be avoided. As a practical matter, Hobbes took
God and religion very seriously, for he thought they provided some of the
strongest motives for action. Half of Leviathan is devoted to trying to show
that his moral and political views are supported by Scripture, and to discredit
those religious views that may lead to civil strife. But accepting the
sincerity of Hobbes’s religious views does not require holding that Hobbes
regarded God as the foundation of morality. He explicitly denies that atheists
and deists are subject to the commands of God, but he never denies that they
are subject to the laws of nature or of the civil state. Once one recognizes
that, for Hobbes, reason itself provides a guide to conduct to be followed by
all people, there is absolutely no need to bring in God. For in his moral and
political theory there is nothing that God can do that is not already done by
reason. Grice read most of Hobbes, both in Latin (for his Lit. Hum.) and in
English. When in “Meaning,” Grice says “this is what people are getting at with
their natural versus artificial signs” – he means Hobbes.
Hobson’s choice: willkür –
Hobson’s choice. One of Grice’s favourite words from Kant – “It’s so Kantish!”
I told Pears about this, and having found it’s cognate with English ‘choose,’
he immediately set to write an essay on the topic!” f., ‘option, discretion,
caprice,’ from MidHG. willekür,
f., ‘free choice, free will’; gee kiesen and Kur-kiesen, verb, ‘to select,’ from Middle
High German kiesen, Old
High German chiosan, ‘to
test, try, taste for the purpose of testing, test by tasting, select after
strict examination.’ Gothic kiusan,
Anglo-Saxon ceósan,
English to choose.
Teutonic root kus (with
the change of s into r, kur in the participle erkoren, see also Kur,
‘choice’), from pre-Teutonic gus,
in Latin gus-tus, gus-tare, Greek γεύω for γεύσω, Indian root juš, ‘to select, be fond of.’ Teutonic kausjun passed as kusiti into Slavonic. There is
an oil portrait of Thomas Hobson, in the National Portrait Gallery, London. He
looks straight to the artist and is dressed in typical Tudor dress, with a
heavy coat, a ruff, and tie tails Thomas Hobson, a portrait in the National
Portrait Gallery, London. A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one
thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is offered, the
two options are taking it or taking nothing. In other words, one may "take
it or leave it". The phrase is said
to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in
Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse
in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all. According to a plaque
underneath a painting of Hobson donated to Cambridge Guildhall, Hobson had an
extensive stable of some 40 horses. This gave the appearance to his customers
that, upon entry, they would have their choice of mounts, when in fact there
was only one: Hobson required his customers to choose the horse in the stall
closest to the door. This was to prevent the best horses from always being
chosen, which would have caused those horses to become overused.[1] Hobson's
stable was located on land that is now owned by St Catharine's College,
Cambridge. Early appearances in writing
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known written usage of
this phrase is in The rustick's alarm to the Rabbies, written by Samuel Fisher
in 1660:[3] If in this Case there be no
other (as the Proverb is) then Hobson's choice...which is, chuse whether you
will have this or none. It also appears
in Joseph Addison's paper The Spectator (No. 509 of 14 October 1712); and in Thomas
Ward's 1688 poem "England's Reformation", not published until after
Ward's death. Ward wrote: Where to elect
there is but one, 'Tis Hobson's choice—take that, or none. The term
"Hobson's choice" is often used to mean an illusion of choice, but it
is not a choice between two equivalent options, which is a Morton's fork, nor
is it a choice between two undesirable options, which is a dilemma. Hobson's
choice is one between something or nothing.
John Stuart Mill, in his book Considerations on Representative
Government, refers to Hobson's choice:
When the individuals composing the majority would no longer be reduced
to Hobson's choice, of either voting for the person brought forward by their
local leaders, or not voting at all. In another of his books, The Subjection of
Women, Mill discusses marriage: Those
who attempt to force women into marriage by closing all other doors against
them, lay themselves open to a similar retort. If they mean what they say,
their opinion must evidently be, that men do not render the married condition
so desirable to women, as to induce them to accept it for its own
recommendations. It is not a sign of one's thinking the boon one offers very
attractive, when one allows only Hobson's choice, 'that or none'.... And if men
are determined that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism, they are
quite right in point of mere policy, in leaving to women only Hobson's choice.
But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern world to relax the
chain on the minds of women, has been a mistake. They should have never been
allowed to receive a literary education.[7]
A Hobson's choice is different from:
Dilemma: a choice between two or more options, none of which is
attractive. False dilemma: only certain choices are considered, when in fact
there are others. Catch-22: a logical paradox arising from a situation in which
an individual needs something that can only be acquired by not being in that
very situation. Morton's fork, and a double bind: choices yield equivalent, and
often undesirable, results. Blackmail and extortion: the choice between paying
money (or some non-monetary good or deed) or risk suffering an unpleasant
action. A common error is to use the phrase "Hobbesian choice"
instead of "Hobson's choice", confusing the philosopher Thomas Hobbes
with the relatively obscure Thomas Hobson (It's possible they may be confusing
"Hobson's choice" with "Hobbesian trap", which refers to
the trap into which a state falls when it attacks another out of fear).[11]
Notwithstanding that confused usage, the phrase "Hobbesian choice" is
historically incorrect. Common law In Immigration and Naturalization Service v.
Chadha (1983), Justice Byron White dissented and classified the majority's
decision to strike down the "one-house veto" as unconstitutional as
leaving Congress with a Hobson's choice. Congress may choose between
"refrain[ing] from delegating the necessary authority, leaving itself with
a hopeless task of writing laws with the requisite specificity to cover endless
special circumstances across the entire policy landscape, or in the
alternative, to abdicate its lawmaking function to the executive branch and
independent agency". In
Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617 (1978),[15] the majority opinion ruled
that a New Jersey law which prohibited the importation of solid or liquid waste
from other states into New Jersey was unconstitutional based on the Commerce
Clause. The majority reasoned that New Jersey cannot discriminate between the
intrastate waste and the interstate waste with out due justification. In dissent,
Justice Rehnquist stated: [According to
the Court,] New Jersey must either prohibit all landfill operations, leaving
itself to cast about for a presently nonexistent solution to the serious
problem of disposing of the waste generated within its own borders, or it must
accept waste from every portion of the United States, thereby multiplying the
health and safety problems which would result if it dealt only with such wastes
generated within the State. Because past precedents establish that the Commerce
Clause does not present appellees with such a Hobson's choice, I dissent. In Monell v. Department of Social Services of
the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978)[16] the judgement of the court was
that [T]here was ample support for
Blair's view that the Sherman Amendment, by putting municipalities to the
Hobson's choice of keeping the peace or paying civil damages, attempted to
impose obligations to municipalities by indirection that could not be imposed
directly, thereby threatening to "destroy the government of the
states". In the South African
Constitutional Case MEC for Education, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Others v Pillay, 2008
(1) SA 474 (CC)[17] Chief Justice Langa for the majority of the Court (in
Paragraph 62 of the judgement) writes that:
The traditional basis for invalidating laws that prohibit the exercise
of an obligatory religious practice is that it confronts the adherents with a
Hobson's choice between observance of their faith and adherence to the law.
There is however more to the protection of religious and cultural practices
than saving believers from hard choices. As stated above, religious and
cultural practices are protected because they are central to human identity and
hence to human dignity which is in turn central to equality. Are voluntary
practices any less a part of a person's identity or do they affect human
dignity any less seriously because they are not mandatory? In Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018),
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented and added in one of the footnotes that
the petitioners "faced a Hobson’s choice: accept arbitration on their
employer’s terms or give up their jobs".
In Trump et al v. Mazars USA, LLP, US Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia No. 19-5142, 49 (D.C. Cir. 11 October 2019) ("[w]orse still,
the dissent’s novel approach would now impose upon the courts the job of
ordering the cessation of the legislative function and putting Congress to the
Hobson’s Choice of impeachment or nothing."). Popular culture Hobson's Choice is a
full-length stage comedy written by Harold Brighouse in 1915. At the end of the
play, the central character, Henry Horatio Hobson, formerly a wealthy,
self-made businessman but now a sick and broken man, faces the unpalatable
prospect of being looked after by his daughter Maggie and her husband Will
Mossop, who used to be one of Hobson's underlings. His other daughters have
refused to take him in, so he has no choice but to accept Maggie's offer which
comes with the condition that he must surrender control of his entire business
to her and her husband, Will. The play
was adapted for film several times, including versions from 1920 by Percy Nash,
1931 by Thomas Bentley, 1954 by David Lean and a 1983 TV movie. Alfred Bester's 1952 short story Hobson's
Choice describes a world in which time travel is possible, and the option is to
travel or to stay in one's native time.
In the 1951 Robert Heinlein book Between Planets, the main character Don
Harvey incorrectly mentions he has a Hobson's choice. While on a space station
orbiting Earth, Don needs to get to Mars, where his parents are. The only
rockets available are back to Earth (where he is not welcome) or on to
Venus. In The Grim Grotto by Lemony
Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans and Fiona are said to be faced with a Hobson's
Choice when they are trapped by the Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms in the
Gorgonian Grotto: "We can wait until the mushrooms disappear, or we can
find ourselves poisoned".In Bram Stoker's short story "The Burial of
Rats", the narrator advises he has a case of Hobson's Choice while being
chased by villains. The story was written around 1874. The Terminal Experiment, a 1995 science
fiction novel by Robert J. Sawyer, was originally serialised under the title
Hobson's Choice. Half-Life, a video game
created in 1998 by Valve includes a Hobson's Choice in the final chapter. A
human-like entity, known only as the 'G-Man', offers the protagonist Gordon
Freeman a job, working under his control. If Gordon were to refuse this offer,
he would be killed in an unwinnable battle, thus creating the 'illusion of free
choice'. In Early Edition, the lead
character Gary Hobson is named after the choices he regularly makes during his
adventures. In an episode of Inspector
George Gently, a character claims her resignation was a Hobson's choice,
prompting a debate among other police officers as to who Hobson is. In "Cape May" (The Blacklist season
3, episode 19), Raymond Reddington describes having faced a Hobson's choice in
the previous episode where he was faced with the choice of saving Elizabeth
Keen's baby and losing Elizabeth Keen or losing them both. In his 1984 novel Job: A Comedy of Justice,
Robert A. Heinlein's protagonist is said to have Hobson's Choice when he has
the options of boarding the wrong cruise ship or staying on the island. Remarking about the 1909 Ford Model T, US
industrialist Henry Ford is credited as saying “Any customer can have a car
painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”[19] In 'The Jolly Boys' Outing', a 1989 Christmas
Special episode of Only Fools and Horses, Alan states they are left with
Hobson's Choice after their coach has blown up (due to a dodgy radio, supplied
by Del). There's a rail strike, the last bus has gone, and their coach is out
of action. They can't hitch-hike as there's 27 of them, and the replacement
coach doesn't come till the next morning, thus their only choice is to stay in
Margate for the night. See also
Buckley's Chance Buridan's ass Boulwarism Death and Taxes Locus of control
Morton's fork No-win situation Standard form contract Sophie's Choice Zugzwang
References Barrett, Grant.
"Hobson's Choice", A Way with Words
"Thomas Hobson: Hobson's Choice and Hobson's Conduit".
Historyworks. See Samuel Fisher.
"Rusticus ad academicos in exercitationibus expostulatoriis, apologeticis
quatuor the rustick's alarm to the rabbies or The country correcting the
university and clergy, and ... contesting for the truth ... : in four
apologeticall and expostulatory exercitations : wherein is contained, as well a
general account to all enquirers, as a general answer to all opposers of the
most truly catholike and most truly Christ-like Chistians called Quakers, and
of the true divinity of their doctrine : by way of entire entercourse held in
special with four of the clergies chieftanes, viz, John Owen ... Tho. Danson
... John Tombes ... Rich. Baxter ." Europeana. Retrieved 8 August
2014. See The Spectator with Notes and
General Index, the Twelve Volumes Comprised in Two. Philadelphia: J.J. Woodward.
1832. p. 272. Retrieved 4 August 2014. via Google Books Ward, Thomas (1853). English Reformation, A
Poem. New York: D.& J. Sadlier & Co. p. 373. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
via Internet Archive See Mill, John
Stuart (1861). Considerations on Representative Government (1 ed.). London:
Parker, Son, & Bourn. p. 145. Retrieved 23 June 2014. via Google Books Mill, John Stuart (1869). The Subjection of
Women (1869 first ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. pp. 51–2.
Retrieved 28 July 2014. Hobbes, Thomas
(1982) [1651]. Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth,
Ecclesiastical and Civil. New York: Viking Press. Martinich, A. P. (1999). Hobbes: A Biography.
Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-49583-7. Martin, Gary. "Hobson's Choice".
The Phrase Finder. Archived from the original on 6 March 2009. Retrieved 7
August 2010. "The Hobbesian
Trap" (PDF). 21 September 2010. Retrieved 8 April 2012. "Sunday Lexico-Neuroticism".
boaltalk.blogspot.com. 27 July 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2010. Levy, Jacob (10 June 2003). "The Volokh
Conspiracy". volokh.com. Retrieved 7 August 2010. Oxford English Dictionary, Editor:
"Amazingly, some writers have confused the obscure Thomas Hobson with his
famous contemporary, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. The resulting malapropism
is beautifully grotesque". Garner, Bryan (1995). A Dictionary of Modern
Legal Usage (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 404–405.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/437/617/ "Monell v. Department of Soc. Svcs. -
436 U.S. 658 (1978)". justicia.com. US Supreme Court. 6 June 1978. 436
U.S. 658. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
"MEC for Education: Kwazulu-Natal and Others v Pillay (CCT 51/06)
[2007] ZACC 21; 2008 (1) SA 474 (CC); 2008 (2) BCLR 99 (CC) (5 October
2007)". www.saflii.org. Snicket,
Lemony (2004) The Grim Grotto, New York: HarperCollins Publishers p.145 -
147 Henry Ford in collaboration with
Samuel Crowther in My Life and Work. 1922. Page 72 External links Chisholm,
Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hobson's Choice" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 13
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 553. Categories: English-language
idiomsFree willMetaphors referring to peopleDilemmas. Refs.: H. P. Grice and D.
F. Pears, The philosophy of action, Pears, Choosing and deciding. The H. P.
Grice Papers, BANC.
hoc
-- hic, the hæc, and the hoc, the – Grice: “The proper way to enter this in
a philosophical lexicon is via that favourite gender of philosophers: the
epicene or neuter!” -- “Scotus was being clever. Since he wanted an abstract
noun, and abstract nouns are feminine in both Greek and Latin (‘ippotes,
eqquitas’), he chose the feminine ‘haec,’ to turn into a ‘thisness.’ But we
should expand his rather sexist view to apply to ‘hic’ and ‘hoc,’ too. In
Anglo-Saxon, there is only ‘this,’ with ‘thisness’ first used by Pope George.
The OED first registers ‘thisness’ in 1643.” – cf. OED: "It is at its such-&-suchness, at its character -- in other
words, at the _universal_ in it -- that
we have to look. the first cite in the OED for 'thisness' also
features 'thatness': "thisness,” from "this" +
"-ness": rendering ‘haecceitas,’ the quality of being 'this' (as
distinct from anything else): = haecceity. First cite: "It is evident that
[...] THISness, and THATness belong[...] not to matter by itself, but onely as [matter]
is distinguished & individuated by the form." The two further quotes
for 'thisness' being: 1837 Whewell Hist Induct Sc 1857 I 244: "Which his
school called ‘HAECcceity’ – from the feminine form of the demonstrative
masculine ‘hic,’ in Roman, neutre ‘hoc’ (Scotus uses the femine because ‘-ity-
is a feminine ending) -- or ‘thisness.’", and 1895 Rashdall Universities
II 532: "An individuating form called by the later Scotists its
‘haecceitas’ or its `thisness'").
"The investing of the content, which is in Bradleian language a `what', with self-existent reality or ‘that-ness'." Athenaeum 24 Dec. 1904 868/2. -- OED, 'thatness'. Trudgill writes in _The Dialects of England_
(Oxford: Blackwell), that Grice would often consult (he was from Harborne and
had a special interest in this – “I seem to have lost my dialect when I moved
to Corpus.” The 'this'-'that' demonstrative system is a two-way system
which distinguishes between things which are distant and things which are near.
Interestingly, however, a number of traditional dialects in England (if not
Oxford) differ from this system in having what Grice called a Griceian
_three_-way distinction. The Yorkshire dialect, for example, has ‘this’ (sing.,
near), ‘thir’ (pl. near), ‘that’ (sing. Medial) ‘tho’ (plural, medial), thon
(sing. distal) and ‘thon’ (pl., distal). The Mercian Anglian dialect has
‘these’ (sing. near), ‘theys’ (plural, near), ‘that’ (sing. medial), ‘they’
(pl., medial), ‘thik’ (sing./pl., distal). “The northern dialect is better in
that it distinguishes between the singular and the plural form for the distal,
unlike the southern dialect which has ‘thik’ for either.” Grice. Still, Grice
likes the sound of ‘thik’ and quotes from his friend M. Wakelin, _The Southwest
of England_. "When I awoke one May day morn/I found an urge within me
born/To see the beauteous countryside/That's all round wher'I do bide./So I set
out wi' dog & stick,/ My head were just a trifle thick./But good ole' fresh
air had his say/& blowed thik trouble clean away." -- B. Green, in
_The Dorset Year Book_. Dorset: Society of Dorset Men. “Some like Russell, but
Bradley’s MY man.” – H. P. Grice: Grice: "Russell is pretentious; Bradley, an English angel, is
not!" "Bradley can use 'thatness' freely; Russell
uses it after Bradley and artificially." all the rest of the
watery bulk : but return back those few drops from whence they were
taken, and the glass-full that even now had an individuation by itself,
loseth that, and groweth one and the same with the other main stock : yet
if you fill your glass again, wheresoever you take it up, so it be
of the same uniform bulk of water you had before, it is the same glassfuU
of water that you had. But as I said before, this example fitteth
entirely no more than the other did. In such abstracted speculations,
where we must consider matter without form, (which hath no actual being,)
we must not expect adequated examples in nature. But enough is said to
make a speculative man see, that if God should join the soul of a
lately dead man, (even whilst his dead corpse should lie en- tire in his
windingsheet here,) unto a body made of earth, taken from some mountain
in America; it were most true and certain, that the body he should then
live by, were the same identical body he lived with before his death, and
late resurrection. It is evident, that sameness, thisness, and
that- ness, belongeth not to matter by itself, (for a general
indiffer- ence runneth through it all,) but only as it is distinguished
and individuated by the form. Which in our case, whensoever the
same soul doth, it must be understood always to be the same matter and
body.” (Browne, 1643). Grice. Corbin says that English is such a
plastic language, “unlike Roman,” but then there’s haec, and hæcceitas -- Duns
Scotus, J., Scottish Franciscan metaphysician and philosophical theologian. He
lectured at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, where he died and his remains are still
venerated. Modifying Avicenna’s conception of metaphysics as the science of
being qua being, but univocally conceived, Duns Scotus showed its goal was to
demonstrate God as the Infinite Being revealed to Moses as the “I am who am”,
whose creative will is the source of the world’s contingency. Out of love God
fashioned each creature with a unique “haecceity” or particularity formally
distinct from its individualized nature. Descriptively identical with others of
its kind, this nature, conceived in abstraction from haecceity, is both
objectively real and potentially universal, and provides the basis for scientific
knowledge that Peirce calls “Scotistic realism.” Duns Scotus brought many of
Augustine’s insights, treasured by his Franciscan predecessors, into the
mainstream of the Aristotelianism of his day. Their notion of the will’s
“supersufficient potentiality” for self-determination he showed can be
reconciled with Aristotle’s notion of an “active potency,” if one rejects the
controDuhem thesis Duns Scotus, John 247
247 versial principle that “whatever is moved is moved by another.”
Paradoxically, Aristotle’s criteria for rational and non-rational potencies
prove the rationality of the will, not the intellect, for he claimed that only
rational faculties are able to act in opposite ways and are thus the source of
creativity in the arts. If so, then intellect, with but one mode of acting
determined by objective evidence, is non-rational, and so is classed with
active potencies called collectively “nature.” Only the will, acting “with
reason,” is free to will or nill this or that. Thus “nature” and “will” represent
Duns Scotus’s primary division of active potencies, corresponding roughly to
Aristotle’s dichotomy of non-rational and rational. Original too is his
development of Anselm’s distinction of the will’s twofold inclination or
“affection”: one for the advantageous, the other for justice. The first endows
the will with an “intellectual appetite” for happiness and actualization of
self or species; the second supplies the will’s specific difference from other
natural appetites, giving it an innate desire to love goods objectively
according to their intrinsic worth. Guided by right reason, this “affection for
justice” inclines the will to act ethically, giving it a congenital freedom
from the need always to seek the advantageous. Both natural affections can be
supernaturalized, the “affection for justice” by charity, inclining us to love
God above all and for his own sake; the affection for the advantageous by the
virtue of hope, inclining us to love God as our ultimate good and future source
of beatitude. Another influential psychological theory is that of intuitive
intellectual cognition, or the simple, non-judgmental awareness of a
hereand-now existential situation. First developed as a necessary theological
condition for the face-toface vision of God in the next life, intellectual
intuition is needed to explain our certainty of primary contingent truths, such
as “I think,” “I choose,” etc., and our awareness of existence. Unlike Ockham,
Duns Scotus never made intellectual intuition the basis for his epistemology, nor
believed it puts one in direct contact with any extramental substance material
or spiritual, for in this life, at least, our intellect works through the
sensory imagination. Intellectual intuition seems to be that indistinct
peripheral aura associated with each direct sensory-intellectual cognition. We
know of it explicitly only in retrospect when we consider the necessary
conditions for intellectual memory. It continued to be a topic of discussion
and dispute down to the time of Calvin, who, influenced by the Scotist John
Major, used an auditory rather than a visual sense model of intellectual
intuition to explain our “experience of God.”
haecceity from Latin haec, ‘this’, 1 loosely, thisness; more
specifically, an irreducible category of being, the fundamental actuality of an
existent entity; or 2 an individual essence, a property an object has
necessarily, without which it would not be or would cease to exist as the
individual it is, and which, necessarily, no other object has. There are in the
history of philosophy two distinct concepts of haecceity. The idea originated
with the work of the thirteenthcentury philosopher Duns Scotus, and was
discussed in the same period by Aquinas, as a positive perfection that serves
as a primitive existence and individuation principle for concrete existents. In
the seventeenth century Leibniz transformed the concept of haecceity, which
Duns Scotus had explicitly denied to be a form or universal, into the notion of
an individual essence, a distinctive nature or set of necessary characteristics
uniquely identifying it under the principle of the identity of indiscernibles.
Duns Scotus’s haecceitas applies only to the being of contingently existent
entities in the actual world, but Leibniz extends the principle to individuate
particular things not only through the changes they may undergo in the actual
world, but in any alternative logically possible world. Leibniz admitted as a
consequence the controversial thesis that every object by virtue of its
haecceity has each of its properties essentially or necessarily, so that only
the counterparts of individuals can inhabit distinct logically possible worlds.
A further corollary since the possession
of particular parts in a particular arrangement is also a property and hence
involved in the individual essence of any complex object is the doctrine of mereological essentialism:
every composite is necessarily constituted by a particular configuration of
particular proper parts, and loses its self-identity if any parts are removed or
replaced. Grice was more familiar with the thatness than the thisness (“Having
had to read Bradley for my metaphysics paper!”).
hologram: the image of an
object in three dimensions created and reproduced by the use of lasers.
Holography is a method for recording and reproducing such images. Holograms are
remarkable in that, unlike normal photographs, every part of them contains the
complete image but in reduced detail. Thus a small square cut from a hologram
can still be laser-illuminated to reveal the whole scene originally
holographed, albeit with loss of resolution. This feature made the hologram
attractive to proponents of the thesis of distribution of function in the
brain, who argued that memories are like holograms, not being located in a
single precise engram – as claimed by advocates of localization of function –
but distributed across perhaps all of the cortex. Although intriguing, the
holographic model of memory storage failed to gain acceptance. Current views
favor D. O. Hebb’s “cell assembly” concept, in which memories are stored in the
connections between a group of neurons.
Hoesle: Vittorio
Hösle Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search
Vittorio Hösle (Milano, 25 giugno 1960) èun filosofo, saggista e traduttore
italiano. Indice 1 Cenni
biografici 2 Gli
studi sul pensiero antico 3 Gli
studi sull'idealism o tedesco e il problema della fondazione ultima riflessiva
4 Gli studi su
Vico e la traduzione in tedesco della Scienza Nuova 5 Critica e riformulazione dell'idealismo
oggettivo: Il sistema di Hegel 6 La
riflessione sulla filosofia pratica 7 Altri
studi e ricerche 8 Note
9 Bibliografia
9.1 Opere
principali di Hösle 10 Voci
correlate 11 Altri
progetti 12 Collegamenti
esterni Cenni biografici Nato da padre tedesco – Johannes Hösle, docente di
filologia romanza – e da madre italiana - Carla Gronda –, Vittorio Hösle
trascorse la sua prima infanzia a Milano, dove Johannes Hösle era direttore del
Goethe Institut, e compì poi gli studi in Germania, dove la famiglia si era
trasferita dal 1966. Vero «enfant prodige» della filosofia, precoce e profondo
conoscitore delle lingue antiche (greco, latino, sanscrito, ma anche pali e
avestico) e di numerose lingue occidentali (ne parla sette ed è in grado di
leggerne dodici), a ventidue anni si laureò con una tesi sulla filosofia antica
(v. infra), a ventisei anni fu chiamato come professore associato alla New
School for Social Research di New York e a trentadue anni divenne professore
ordinario all'Università di Essen. Attualmente insegna alla Notre Dame
University (Indiana) negli Stati Uniti. Il 6 agosto 2013 è stato nominato
Accademico ordinario della Pontificia Accademia delle Scienze Sociali da Papa
Francesco. Gli studi sul pensiero antico Alla «scoperta» di Hösle contribuì
in modo determinante l'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, che lo
chiamò a Napoli come borsista (venticinquenne) dell'Istituto negli anni
1985-1986. Nell'anno precedente l'Istituto aveva accolto nel suo programma
editoriale la tesi di laurea di Hösle, un poderoso lavoro sulla filosofia
antica di quasi 800 pagine intitolato Wahrheit und Geschichte. Studien zur
Struktur der Philosophiegeschichte unter paradigmatischer Analyse der
Entwicklung von Parmenides bis Platon (Verità e storia. Studi sulla struttura
della storia della filosofia sulla base di un'analisi paradigmatica
dell'evoluzione da Parmenide a Platone), promuovendone la pubblicazione per la
casa editrice Frommann-Holzboog e successivamente una traduzione italiana per i
tipi della Guerini e Associati. In quest'opera l'allora giovanissimo filosofo
imposta in maniera originale il problema dei rapporti tra dimensione
sistematica e dimensione storica della filosofia, analizzando lo sviluppo del
pensiero greco da Parmenide a Platone. Nel lavoro successivo, Die
Vollendung der Tragödie im Spätwerk des Sophokles. Ästhetisch-historische
Bemerkungen zur Struktur der attischen Tragödie (Il compimento della tragedia
nell'opera tarda di Sofocle. Osservazioni storico-estetiche sulla struttura
della tragedia attica) – pubblicato nel 1984 dalla Fromann-Holzboog e in
traduzione italiana nel 1986 da Bibliopolis –, Hösle, combinando l'approccio
estetico con l'approccio filosofico, cerca di individuare una logica di
sviluppo nella storia della tragedia greca e, in contrasto con l'approccio
consueto, considera Sofocle come il compimento sintetico di questa storia:
"il pensiero fondamentale espresso nell'opera tarda di Sofocle è sintesi
dei principi che sono alla base dell'arte di Eschilo e di Euripide, principi che
vengono fatti valere insieme da Sofocle e così portati alla loro
verità"[1]. Negli anni Ottanta Hösle, che a Regensburg era stato
allievo del matematico e filosofo Imre Toth, si occupò anche del problema della
matematica in Platone, scrivendo nel 1982 e nel 1984 alcuni saggi, che, per
interessamento di Giovanni Reale, vengono tradotti in italiano e riuniti in un
volume pubblicato nel 1994 dalla casa editrice "Vita e Pensiero" con
il titolo I fondamenti dell'aritmetica e della geometria in Platone. In
anni recenti Hösle è tornato ad occuparsi della filosofia e della letteratura
antiche. In un lavoro del 2004, Platoninterpretieren (Interpretare Platone), di
cui è uscita nel 2007 anche la traduzione italiana, discute il problema delle
interpretazioni di Platone enel volume del 2006, Der philosophische Dialog.
Poetik eines Genres (Il dialogo filosofico. Poetica di un genere), analizza
ilgenere del dialogo mettendo in connessione il punto di vista filosofico con
il punto di vista letterario. Al problema della tragedia è poi dedicato il
lavoro del 2009 Die Rangordnung der drei griechischen Tragiker (La gerarchia
dei tre tragici greci). Gli studi sull'idealismo tedesco e il problema
della fondazione ultima riflessiva Nei suoi anni italiani a Napoli Hösle tenne
una serie di seminari e di conferenze sull'idealismo tedesco, in particolare
sul sistema di Hegel, e presentò diverse relazioni in convegni internazionali.
Va ricordato il convegno sulla filosofia hegeliana del diritto (Napoli, 1984),
i cui atti, pubblicati nel 1987 a cura di Christoph Jermann, amico e
collaboratore del filosofo, col titolo Anspruch und Leistung von Hegels
Rechtphilosophie, contengono, ben tre ampi saggi di Hösle, oltre a contributi
dello stesso Jermann, di Kurt Seelmann e di Matthias Hartwig. Di uno di essi,
Lo Stato in Hegel, esiste una traduzione italiana pubblicata nel 2008 per i
tipi de "La città del Sole". La riflessione hösliana
sull'idealimo oggettivo di Hegel si sviluppa in stretta connessione col
problema della "fondazione ultima riflessiva" (reflexive
Letztbegründung) e con la soluzione fornita a tale problema dalla pragmatica
trascendentale di Karl-Otto Apel. L'unica alternativa consistente al
relativismo scettico, dominante nel panorama della filosofia contemporanea ed
assurto oggi ad una sorta di principio dell'opinione pubblica, consiste,
secondo Hösle, nell'impostazione riflessiva presente negli idealisti
postkantiani e soprattutto in Hegel, impostazione che è necessario sviluppare
con gli strumenti elaborati dalla filosofia contemporanea e in stretta
connessione con i più recenti risultati delle scienze. Alla pragmatica
trascendentale di Apel va riconosciuto il merito di aver riproposto in maniera
originale la nozione di "fondazione ultima riflessiva", ma tale
nozione va ripensata nella sua portata ontologica, superando il formalismo
apeliano nella direzione di una formulazione profondamente rielaborata
dell'idealismo oggettivo di matrice hegeliana. In questa direzione, che
culminerà nel poderoso lavoro del 1987 sul sistema di Hegel (v. infra), vanno
le lezioni hegeliane tenute a Napoli da Hösle nel 1986 e parzialmente
pubblicate in volume nel 1991 con il titolo Hegel e la fondazione
dell'idealismo oggettivo, in cui è compresa anche la traduzione dell'importante
saggio Begründungsfragen des objektiven Idealismus (Questioni di fondazione
dell'idealismo oggettivo) scritto proprio nel 1987[2]. Della pragmatica
trascendentale, soprattutto in relazione al problema decisivo della fondazione
ultima riflessiva, Hösle tornò ad occuparsi alla fine degli anni Ottanta in una
vasta monografia, Die Krise der Gegenwart und die Verantwortung der Philosophie
(La crisi della contemporaneità e la responsabilità della filosofia),
pubblicata nel 1990[3] (e tradotta in francese nel 2004): la filosofia di Apel
viene analizzata all'interno delle più importanti tendenze della filosofia
contemporanea, viene esposta in modo dettagliato la "prova" della
fondazione ultima riflessiva (la cosiddetta "prova apagogica") e
vengono discussi questioni relative al linguaggio privato, alla controversia
“spiegare-comprendere (Erklären-Verstehen)” e alla fondazione dell'etica.
Gli studi su Vico e la traduzione in tedesco della Scienza Nuova Sempre in
questo periodo Hösle intraprese la traduzione integrale in tedesco (la prima
traduzione integrale in questa lingua) della Scienza nuova di Giambattista Vico
nella terza edizione del 1744, compito affidatogli dall'Istituto Italiano per
gli Studi Filosofici e che egli, insieme a Christoph Jermann, portò a termine
in tempi straordinariamente brevi. Il capolavoro vichiano uscì nel 1990 per i
tipi della casa editrice Felix Meiner in due volumi[4]; la traduzione è
preceduta da una introduzione filologica e teoretica di quasi 300 pagine, in
cui Hösle illustra il significato ancora attuale della concezione vichiana per
una teoria delle scienze della cultura filosoficamente fondata. Questa
introduzione è stata tradotta in italiano e pubblicata in volume nel 1997 con
il titolo Introduzione a Vico. La scienza del mondo intersoggettivo per i tipi
della Guerini e Associati. Critica e riformulazione dell'idealismo
oggettivo: Il sistema di Hegel La rilessione teoretica di Hösle culmina, come
si è detto, nella riformulazione critica dell'idealismo oggettivo elaborata in
un lavoro di vaste proporzioni, nato come scritto di abilitazione
all'insegnamento universitario e pubblicato dalla casa editrice Felix Meiner
nel 1987 in due volumi col titolo Hegels System. Der Idealismus der
Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität (Il sistema di Hegel.
L'idealismo della soggettività e il problema dell'intersoggettività). Sulla
base di un'approfondita e articolata analisi, in primo luogo teoretica, del
sistema hegeliano, la cui articolazione viene criticamente ripercorsa in modo
dettagliato, Hösle vi sostiene la tesi seguente: l'aporia principale della
filosofia di Hegel consiste nell'aver trascurato il problema
dell'intersoggettività nella scienza della logica ossia nella parte fondativa
del sistema; questa lacuna comporta un grave squilibrio nella struttura
complessiva del sistema, in particolare, nella filosofia dello spirito
oggettivo e dello spirito assoluto, che restano "scoperte" sul piano
logico, ossia senza un corrispettivo categoriale in grado di fondare le
strutture intersoggettive di cui trattano. Questa aporia fondamentale è alla
radice delle altre aporie presenti nel sistema hegeliano, come, ad esempio,
l'appiattimento del dover-essere sull'essere con la conseguente visione
passatista e la questione della conclusione del sistema. Nel contempo Hösle
cerca di mostrare come l'idea fondamentale dell'idealismo oggettivo sia
teoreticamente ancora attuale e indispensabile sia per fondare in modo rigoroso
la specificità del discorso filosofico sia per superare la scissione tra
scienze della natura e scienze dello spirito che caratterizza in modo aporetico
il pensiero moderno e contemporaneo. Quest'opera ha avuto una vasta
risonanza internazionale ed è stata tradotta in portoghese e parzialmente in
coreano. Nel 2012, promossa dall'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici e
per i tipi della casa editrice "La scuola di Pitagora", è uscita
la traduzione integrale italiana (comprendente anche la Postfazione scritta
dall'Autore per la seconda edizione del 1998) col titolo Il sistema di Hegel.
L'idealismo della soggettività e il problema dell'intersoggettività. La
riflessione sulla filosofia pratica A partire dagli anni Novanta del secolo
trascorso Hösle spostò la sua riflessione dalla "filosofia prima"
alla "filosofia seconda", occupandosi di problemi morali e politici,
tra cui ha un posto di rilievo la questione dell'ecologia. Notevole eco hanno
suscitato la sua Philosophie der ökologischen Krise (Filosofia della crisi
ecologica) del 1991, che è stata tradotta in italiano, in francese, in russo,
in croato, in coreano e parzialmente in olandese. I suoi studi delle
moderne scienze sociali, politologia ed economia soprattutto, sono poi
confluiti in un poderoso lavoro di filosofia pratica elaborata sul fondamento
dell'idealismo oggettivo: Moral und Politik. Grundlagen einer Politischen Ethik
für das 21. Jahrhundert (Morale e politica. Fondamenti di un'etica politica per
il XXI secolo), pubblicato nel 1997 da Beck e tradotto in inglese nel 2004, che
costituisce senz'altro la sua opera più impegnativa dopo Il sistema di
Hegel. Vanno menzionati anche i saggi, scritti in tempi diversi e poi
raccolti nel volume Praktische Philosophie in der modernen Welt del 1992, in
cui vengono discussi problemi come quello della tecnica, della valutazione
etica del capitalismo, del terzo mondo, della dialettica
illuminismo/controilluminismo ecc. Altri studi e ricerche Dei
numerosissimi scritti di Hösle, che riflettono la vastità dei suoi interessi e
dei suoi ambiti di ricerca, è impossibile dar conto in modo easustivo. Ne segnaliamo
alcuni soltanto, avendo riguardo in particolare alle traduzioni italiane
disponibili. Vanno ricordati, innanzi tutto, i lavori sul significato
filosofico della teoria dell'evoluzione di Charles Darwin, tra cui il saggio
del 1988 Tragweite und Grenzen der evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie, tradotto in
italiano col titolo Portata e limiti della teoria evoluzionistica della
conoscenza (Napoli 1996, La Città del Sole), e i lavori scritti in
collaborazione col biologo Christian Illies, in particolare la monografia
Darwin del 1999. Un affascinante esempio di Kinderphilosophie o
Philosophy for children è il best seller scritto da Hösle insieme
all'adolescente Nora K.: Das Café der toten Philosophen. Ein philosophischer
Briefwechsel für Kinder und Erwachsene uscito per le edizioni Beck nel 1996 e
più volte ristampato. Il libro è stato tradotto in italiano nel 1999 col titolo
Aristotele e il dinosauro. La filosofia spiegata a una ragazzina, nonché in
inglese, olandese, spagnolo, portoghese, portoghese/brasiliano, catalano,
persiano, coreano, giapponese, turco, taiwanese, cinese e indonesiano. Va
ricordato infine il saggio su Woody Allen, Woody Allen. Versuch über das
Komische (Woody Allen. Sulla comicità), uscito nel 2001 da Beck, e di cui
esiste anche la versione inglese (2007), a riprova del costante interesse
nutrito da Hösle per le forme d'arte, come il teatro e il cinema, in cui
l'intersoggettività - la categoria centrale della sua riflessione filosofica -
gioca un ruolo determinante. Note ^ Il compimento della tragedia
nell'opera tarda di Sofocle. Osservazioni storico-estetiche sulla struttura
della tragedia attica, Napoli 1986, Bibliopolis, p. 17 ^ Nel 2006 sono state
pubblicate anche le lezioni sulla filosofia hegeliana della religione, tenute
da Hösle a Napoli nel 1985, col titolo Il concetto di filosofia della religione
in Hegel per l'editrice "La Scuola di Pitagora". ^ Die Krise der
Gegenwart und die Verantwortung der Philosophie'. Transzendentalpragmatik,
Letztbegründung und Ethik, München 1990, Beck.' ^ Prinzipien einer neuen
Wissenschaft über die gemeinsame Natur der Völker, Tl.1-2, Hamburg 1990, Felix
Meiner. Bibliografia Opere principali di Hösle Platons Grundlegung der
Euklidizität der Geometrie, in: "Philologus", 126 (1982); Zu Platons
Philosophie der Zahlen und deren mathematischer und philosophischer Bedeutung,
in: "Theologie und Philosophie", 59 (1984 [I fondamenti
dell'aritmetica e della geometria in Platone (tr. di E. Cattanei, Introduzione
di G.Reale), Milano 1994, Vita e pensiero]. Wahrheit und Geschichte. Studien
zur Struktur der Philosophiegeschichte unter paradigmatischer Analyse der
Entwicklung von Parmenides bis Platon, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1984,
Frommann-Holzboog [Verità e storia. Studi sulla struttura della storia della
filosofia sulla base di un'analisi paradigmatica dell'evoluzione da Parmenide a
Platone (a cura di A. Tassi; senza la III parte per volontà dell'Autore),
Milano 1998, Guerini e Associati (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici -
Hegeliana 24)]. Die Vollendung der Tragödie im Spätwerk des Sophokles.
Ästhetisch-historische Bemerkungen zur Struktur der attischen Tragödie,
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1984, Frommann-Holzboog [Il compimento della tragedia
nell'opera tarda di Sofocle. Osservazioni storico-estetiche sulla struttura
della tragedia attica (a cura di A. Gargano), Napoli 1986, Bibliopolis (Memorie
dell'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici 16)]. Il concetto di filosofia
della religione in Hegel (trascrizione delle lezioni napoletane del 1985 a cura
di M. Cuccurullo e F. Iannello), Napoli 2006, La Scuola di Pitagora.
Begründungsfragen des objektiven Idealismus, in: Philosophie und Begründung
(hg. vom Forum für Philosophie Bad Homburg), Frankfurt 1987 [tr. it. in Hegel e
la fondazione dell'idealismo oggettivo (a cura di G. Stelli; insieme alle
lezioni napoletane su Hegel del 1986), Milano 1991, Guerini e Associati
(Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici - Hegeliana 1)]. Carl Schmitts
Kritik an der Selbstaufhebung einer wertneutralen Verfassung in "Legalität
und Legitimität", in: "Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift", 61 (1987);
Morality and Politics: Reflections on Machiavelli's Prince, in:
"International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society", 3/1 (1989)
[La legittimità del politico (tr. di S. Calabrò, I. Santa Maria, M. Ivaldo),
Milano 1990, Guerini e Associati (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici.
Saggi 7)]. Hegels System. Der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der
Intersubjektivität, 2 Bde., Hamburg 1987, Studienausgabe 1988, Felix Meiner
Verlag [Il sistema di Hegel. L'idealismo della soggettività e il problema
dell'intersoggettività (a cura di G. Stelli), Napoli 2012, La Scuola di
Pitagora]. Tragweite und Grenzen der evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie, in:
"Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie", 19 (1988) [Portata
e limiti della teoria evoluzionistica della conoscenza (tr. di C. Sessa e G.
Stelli), Napoli 1996, La Città del Sole]. Die Krise der Gegenwart und die
Verantwortung der Philosophie. Transzendentalpragmatik, Letztbegründung, Ethik,
München 1990, C.H.Beck. Vico und die Idee der Kulturwissenschaft, Einleitung zu
Giambattista Vico, Prinzipien einer neuen Wissenschaft über die gemeinsame
Natur der Völker, übs. von V. Hösle und Ch.Jermann, Hamburg 1990, Felix Meiner
[Introduzione a Vico. La scienza del mondo intersoggettivo (tr. di C. e G.
Stelli), Milano 1997, Guerini e Associati(Istituto Italiano per gli Studi
Filosofici. Saggi 28)]. Philosophie der ökologischen Krise. Moskauer Vorträge,
München 1991 sgg., C.H.Beck [Filosofia della crisi ecologica (tr. di P.
Scibelli), Torino 1992, Einaudi]. Praktische Philosophie in der modernen Welt,
München 1992 sgg., C.H.Beck. Philosophiegeschichte und objektiver Idealismus,
München 1996 sgg., C.H.Beck. (con Nora K.), Das Café der toten Philosophen. Ein
philosophischer Briefwechsel für Kinder und Erwachsene, München 1996 sgg.,
C.H.Beck [Aristotele e il dinosauro. La filosofia spiegata a una ragazzina (tr.
di S. Bortoli), Torino 1999, Einaudi]. Die Philosophie und die Wissenschaften,
München 1999 sgg., C.H.Beck. (con Christian Illies), Darwin, Freiburg etc.
1999, Herder. Woody Allen. Versuch über das Komische, München 2001, C.H.Beck.
Platon interpretieren, Paderborn etc. 2004, Ferdinand Schöningh [Interpretare
Platone (tr. di B. Marte e F. Perelda), Milano 2007, Guerini e Associati
(=Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici. Saggi 43)]. Wie sollte eine
synthetische Platondarstellung aussehen? Einige Ueberlegungen angesichts von
Kutscheras neuer Platonmonographie, in: "Logical Analsis and History of
Philosophy", Paderborn 2006, Mentis Verlag, pp. 175-211 [Per una lettura
non riduttiva di Platone (a cura di G. Longo), Napoli 2017, La scuola di
Pitagora] Die Rangordnung der drei griechischen Tragiker, Basel 2009, Schwabe.
Voci correlate Giambattista Vico Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Altri progetti
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Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI
secoloSaggisti italiani del XX secoloSaggisti italiani del XXI secoloTraduttori
italianiNati nel 1960Nati il 25 giugnoNati a MilanoBambini prodigio[altre]
HOMO-CLITIC
-- The homoclitical/heteroclitical distinction, the: heteroclitical
implicaturum:--
Greek κλιτικός (klitikós, “inflexional”, but
transliterated as ‘heterocliticum’) -- signifying a stem which alternates
between more than one form when declined for grammatical case. Examples of
heteroclitic noun stems in Proto-Indo-European include *wod-r/n-
"water" (nominoaccusative *wódr; genitive *udnés; locative *udén) and
*yékw-r/n- "liver" (nominoaccusative *yékwr, genitive *ikwnés). In
Proto-Indo-European, heteroclitic stems tend to be noun stems with
grammatically inanimate gender. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The heteroclitical
implicaturum: implicaturum, implicitum, explicatum, explicitum: what I learned
at Clifton, and why.”
homœmerum:
an
adjective Grice adored, from Grecian homoiomeres, ‘of like parts’). Aristotle: “A lump of bronze differs
from a statue in being homoeo-merous. The lump of bronze is
divisible into at least two partial lumps of bronze, whereas the statue is not
divisible into statues.” Having parts, no matter how small, that share
the constitutive properties of the whole. The derivative abstract noun is
‘homœomeria’. The Grecian forms of the adjective and of its corresponding
privative ‘anhomoeomerous’ are used by Aristotle to distinguish between (a) non-uniform
parts of living things, e.g., limbs and organs, and (b) biological stuffs,
e.g., blood, bone, sap. In spite of being composed of the four elements, each
biological stuff, when taken individually and without admixtures, is
through-and-through F, where F represents the cluster of the constitutive
properties of that stuff. Thus, if a certain physical volume qualifies as
blood, all its mathematically possible sub-volumes, regardless of size, also
qualify as blood. Blood is thus homoeomerous. By contrast, a face or a stomach
or a leaf are an-homoeomerous: the parts of a face are not a face, etc. In Aristotle’s
system, the homœomeria of the biological stuff is tied to his doctrine of the
infinite divisibility of matter. The homœomerum-heterormerum distinction is
prefigured in Plato (Protagoras 329d). ‘Homœomerous’ is narrow in its application
than ‘homogeneous’ and ‘uniform’. We speak of a homogeneous entity even if the
properties at issue are identically present only in samples that fall above a
certain size. The colour of the sea can be homogeneously or uniformly blue; but
it is heteromerously blue. “homoiomeres” and “homoiomereia” also occur –in the ancient
sources for a pre-Aristotelian philosopher, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, with
reference to the constituent things (“chremata”) involved in his scheme of
universal mixture. Moreover, homœeomeria plays a significant role outside
ancient Grecian (or Griceian) philosophy, notably in twentieth-century accounts
of the contrast between mass terms and count terms or sortals, and the
discussion was introduced by Grice. ANAXAGORAS' THEORY OF MATTER-I. 17 homoeomerous in Anaxagoras' system falls into one of
these three class. (I. 834), for example, says: 'When he ... by FM Cornford - 1930. Refs. Grice, “Cornford on Anaxagoras.”
homomorphism: cf. isomorphism
-- in Grice’s model theory of conversation, a structure-preserving mapping from
one structure to another: thus the demonstratum is isomorph with the implicaturum,
since every conversational implicaturum can be arrived via an argumentum. A
structure consists of a domain of objects together with a function specifying
interpretations, with respect to that domain, of the relation symbols, function
symbols, and individual symbols of a given calculus. Relations, functions, and
individuals in different structures for a system like System GHP correspond to
one another if they are interpretations of the same symbol of GHP. To call a
mapping “structure-preserving” is to say, first, that if objects in the first
structure bear a certain relation to one another, then their images in the
second structure (under the mapping) bear the corresponding relation to one
another; second, that the value of a function for a given object (or ntuple of
objects) in the first structure has as its image under the mapping the value of
the corresponding function for the image of the object (or n-tuple of images)
in the second structure; and third, that the image in the second structure of
an object in the first is the corresponding object. An isomorphism is a
homomorphism that is oneto-one and whose inverse is also a homomorphism.
homuncularism
-- Grice on the ‘fallacia homunculi’ Grice borrows ‘homunculus’ from St.
Augustine, for a miniature ‘homo’ held to inhabit the brain (or some other
organ) who perceives all the inputs to the sense organs and initiates all the
commands to the muscles. Any theory that posits such an internal agent risks an
infinite regress (what Grice, after Augustine, calls the ‘fallacia homunculi’) since
we can ask whether there is a little man in the little man’s head, responsible
for his perception and action, and so on. Many familiar views of the mind and
its activities seem to require a homunculus. E. g. models of visual perception
that posit an inner picture as its product apparently require a homunculus to
look at the picture, and models of action that treat intentions as commands to
the muscles apparently require a homunculus to issue the commands. It is never
an easy matter to determine whether a theory is committed to the existence of a
homunculus that vitiates the theory, and in some circumstances, a homunculus
can be legitimately posited at intermediate levels of theory. As Grice says, a
homunculus is, shall we say, a bogey-man (to use a New-World expression) only if
he duplicates entire the talents he is rung in to explain. If one can get a
relatively ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculus to produce the intelligent
behaviour of the whole, this is progress. Grice calls a theory (in philosophoical
psychology) that posit such a homunculus “homuncular functionalism.” Paracelsus is credited with the first mention of the
homunculus in De homunculis (c. 1529–1532),
and De natura rerum (1537).
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Paracelsus.”
HUMAN: Grice uses ‘human,’ technically, as
opposed to ‘person.’ A human is a bio-psycho-social thing, a person is
schatological. Oddly, Varro spent some time trying to explore the root of human
from humus, soil.
Iacono -- Alfonso
Maurizio Iacono Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Alfonso Maurizio Iacono (Agrigento, 16 settembre 1949) è un filosofo
italiano. Ordinario di Storia della Filosofia all'Università di Pisa, nell'anno
accademico 2002-2003 è stato Visiting Professor all'Université de Paris 1
(Sorbonne-Panthéon)[1]. Fino al 2012 ha ricoperto la carica di Preside della
Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università di Pisa. Dal 2015 al 2016 è
stato Presidente del Sistema Museale di Ateneo (SMA) dell'Università di
Pisa. Indice 1 Pensiero 2 Opere
(selezione) 2.1 Saggi
2.2 Filosofia
alle elementari 3 Filosofia
alle scuole superiori 4 Racconti
5 Note
6 Collegamenti
esterni Pensiero Iacono è stato fra gli studiosi italiani che negli anni
settanta e ottanta si sono interessati ai rapporti storici e teorici tra
filosofia, antropologia e politica. Fin dai primi anni ottanta, si è inoltre
occupato di epistemologia della complessità, collaborando con Gianluca Bocchi,
Mauro Ceruti, e Francisco Varela, contribuendo all'introduzione dei temi
dell'epistemologia della complessità nel dibattito filosofico italiano[2]. In
continuità con quell'impegno di ricerca, che trovò prima espressione nella
pubblicazione de L'evento e l'osservatore (1987), nel 2005 ha fondato il
Laboratorio filosofico sulla complessità Ichnos. La sua ricerca si è
concentrata sui rapporti tra filosofia, politica e antropologia nel pensiero
moderno e contemporaneo, in un costante confronto con il pensiero antico: al
riguardo, ha dedicato numerosi studi all'analisi storiografica di nozioni quali
feticismo, paura e meraviglia, e all'indagine epistemologica sul tema
dell'osservatore. Tali ricerche gravitano attorno ad una riflessione sul tema
dell'altro nelle relazioni storico-sociali e politiche: da qui i saggi sulle
triadi concettuali autonomia, potere, minorità e storia, verità,
finzione. Ne Il borghese e il selvaggio (1982) Iacono ha analizzato
l'influenza della figura di Robinson Crusoe nei paradigmi filosofico-economici
di Turgot e Adam Smith rilevando gli elementi di antropologia occidentalista là
dove la rappresentazione teorica della società e della storia si mostrava nei
suoi aspetti apparentemente semplici, ovvi e trasparenti tali da nascondere con
l'evidenza i presupposti del punto di vista coloniale. In Teorie del
feticismo (1985), la genealogia del concetto di feticismo dalla sua origine
nell'illuminista Charles de Brosses fino a Marx, a Freud e al pensiero
contemporaneo, ha contribuito, sul piano metodologico, all'idea di una storia
della filosofia interpretata attraverso concetti e, sul piano interpretativo,
alla messa in evidenza dei mutamenti semantici del “feticismo”, un concetto di
origine coloniale che si è trasformato con Marx e con Freud in due modi di
operare, rispettivamente sul mondo storico-sociale e sul mondo della psiche,
basati sulla pratica teorica di un'antropologia dall'interno. Le fétichisme.
Histoire d'un concept del 1992 è ancora oggi uno dei testi più citati
sull'argomento. Nel 1998, in Paura e meraviglia, i temi storiografici
dell'illuminismo e del feticismo vengono ripresi e ridiscussi alla luce del
pensiero contemporaneo. Il problema filosofico e politico
dell'antropologia dall'interno è stato sviluppato attraverso la questione
epistemologica dell'osservatore a cui Iacono ha dedicato alcuni scritti teorici
tra i quali L'evento e l'osservatore (1987). Influenzato da Marx, ma anche da
Foucault e da Bateson, Iacono ha analizzato le teorie della storia di Bossuet,
Vico e Droysen attraverso il tema del ruolo dell'osservatore che interpreta gli
eventi sociali e naturali nella loro storicità. Interessato alle teorie
contemporanee dell'autorganizzazione biologica (Atlan, Maturana, Varela),
Iacono ha cercato di reinterpretare il senso epistemologico della storia, la
parzialità dei punti di vista impliciti dell'osservatore e delle sue visioni
del mondo, la questione dell'altro, il rapporto tra scienze storico-sociali e
scienze naturali, alla luce del concetto di complessità. In questa chiave, in
Tra individui e cose del 1995, Iacono raccoglieva i risultati di ricerche che,
all'interno dei rapporti fra filosofia, antropologia e politica, si interrogava
attraverso Gregory Bateson sull'idea del ‘pensare per storie' come momento
metodologico e critico di un'antropologia dall'interno in una società come
quella occidentale moderna dove le cose si sostituiscono feticisticamente agli
uomini e il conformismo si mostra incessantemente e paradossalmente come
l'irrompere del nuovo. Il problema della critica sociale e dell'autonomia
individuale come decisivo in una società occidentale che domina il mondo
dichiarandosi libera e democratica è al centro del libro Autonomia, potere,
minorità (2000, Premio Speciale Pozzale Luigi Russo 2001). Partendo dallo
scritto di Kant Risposta alla domanda: che cos'è l'Illuminismo?, Iacono si
chiede perché in una società istituzionalmente ‘libera' e ‘democratica',
all'indomani della fine dei regimi socialisti, il desiderio di uscire dallo
stato di minorità non riesce a vincere il contrastante desiderio di rimanere
nello stato di minorità, perché in sostanza è così forte la paura di essere
autonomi. La questione dell'autonomia ha portato Iacono a interessarsi ai
temi della verità, dell'illusione e dell'inganno. Per un'antropologia
dall'interno occorre vedere con altri occhi e per vedere con altri occhi è
necessario acquisire uno sguardo d'altrove. I temi dell'universalismo e della
questione dell'altro sono discussi in quest'ottica in Storia, verità, finzione
del 2006. La meraviglia che connota il tono emotivo della conoscenza
filosofica deve passare attraverso lo straniamento: essere straniero a te
stesso affinché l'altro non sia straniero a te. L'autonomia può realizzarsi
soltanto nella relazione con l'altro e non, come se l'è immaginato il pensiero
moderno, recidendo ogni legame per poi andarlo a costituire da padroni. Ma
un'antropologia dall'interno è continuamente in tensione con un senso comune
che, conservando le verità condivise ovvero i pregiudizi, tende a mostrarle
come ovvie, naturali, eterne, uniche, a renderle dunque salde e indiscutibili.
Ci si dimentica allora che viviamo in molti mondi, in mondi intermedi (Mondi
intermedi e complessità, 2005), e che siamo capaci, con la coda dell'occhio, di
percepire sempre un mondo altro da quello in cui siamo immersi. Perdendo questa
percezione perdiamo la nostra capacità di uscire da noi stessi e dunque la
facoltà di essere autonomi. L'illusione, attraverso cui ci si approssima alla
verità, che è consapevolezza critica di un'illusione stessa (Nietzsche,
Pirandello), si trasforma in inganno e in autoinganno, sulle cui basi si
produce il rischio della costituzione delle regole del consenso, in una società
libera ma senza autonomia. Nel 2010 ha pubblicato L'illusione e il sostituto.
Riprodurre, imitare, rappresentare. Un'altra direzione di studi
riguarda le genealogie dell'immagine della finestra e del concetto
di illusione nella storia del pensiero occidentale. In quest'ambito di
riflessione Iacono ha realizzato con il regista Renzo Boldrini e l'artista
Andrea Bastogi (produzione Giallo Mare Minimal Teatro) una conferenza
multimediale sullo spettatore e i suoi paradossi, dal titolo Con altri
occhi. Iacono dirige il bimestrale di politica e cultura Il Grandevetro.
Ha collaborato per anni al quotidiano il manifesto. Fa parte del Comitato
scientifico della Scuola di formazione e ricerca sui conflitti Polemos. Fa
parte del comitato scientifico della Fondazione Collegio San Carlo di
Modena. Ha laureato molti studenti al polo universitario universitario
penitenziario della casa circondariale Don Bosco di Pisa e tuttora collabora a
progetti e iniziative per un'effettiva opera di recupero del detenuto che
sconta la pena. Opere (selezione) Saggi Il borghese e il selvaggio, Pisa
2003 (2nd. ed.) Teorie del feticismo, Milano 1985 L'evento e l'osservatore,
Bergamo 1987; trad. fr., L'evenement et l'observateur Paris 1998 Le fétichisme.
Histoire d'un concept, Paris 1992 Fetischismus, in H.J. Sandkühler (Hg.),
Europäische Enzyklopädie zu Philosophie und Wissenschaften, Bd. 2, Felix,
Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1990, pp. 67–72 The American Indians and the Ancients of
Europe, in AA.VV., The Classical Tradition and the Americans, vol. I,
Berlin-New York 1994 Tra individui e cose, Roma 1995 Paura e meraviglia. Storie
filosofiche del XVIII secolo, Catanzaro 1998 Autonomia, potere, minorità,
Milano 2000 (Premio Speciale Pozzale Luigi Russo 2001) Caminhos de saida do
estado de menoridate, Rio de Janeiro, 2001 (con A. G. Gargani), Mondi intermedi
e complessità, Pisa 2005 Storia, verità e finzione, Roma 2006 L'illusione e il
sostituto. Riprodurre, imitare, rappresentare, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2010 The
History and Theory of Fetishism (trad. di Teorie del feticismo), Palgrave
Macmillan US, New York 2016 Il sogno di una copia. Del doppio, del dubbio,
della malinconia, Guerini Scientifica, Milano 2016 Storie di mondi intermedi,
Edizioni ETS, Pisa 2017, ISBN 9788846743794 Studi su Karl Marx. La
cooperazione, l'individuo sociale, le merci, Edizioni ETS, Pisa 2018, ISBN
9788846751584 Filosofia alle elementari (con S. Viti), Le domande sono
ciliegie, Manifestolibri, Roma 2000 (con S. Viti), Per mari aperti. Viaggi tra
filosofia e poesia nelle scuole elementari, Roma 2003 Filosofia alle scuole
superiori La giustizia è l'utile del più forte? Incontro con gli studenti del
Liceo classico «Empedocle» di Agrigento, Pisa 2000 Ra Racconti L'accelerato, in
Favolare a cura di Antonia Casini e Giovanni Vannozzi, MdS editore, Pisa, 2015
La scelta, in Gabbie, a cura di Michele Bulzomì, Antonia Casini, Giovanni
Vannozzi, MdS editore, Pisa 2016 Note ^ il sito è momentaneamente disattivato ^
PSYCHOMEDIA - JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN PSYCHOANALYSIS - Alfonso M. Iacono -
Francisco Varela and the Concept of Autonomy Collegamenti esterni Alfonso
Maurizio Iacono, su siusa.archivi.beniculturali.it, Sistema Informativo
Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche. Modifica su Wikidata Controllo
di autorità VIAF
(EN) 93593494 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 8166 1994 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\043271 · LCCN
(EN) n83032356 · BNF (FR) cb120281002 (data) · WorldCat Identities (EN)
lccn-n83032356 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI secoloNati
nel 1949Nati il 16 settembreNati ad Agrigento[altre]
Illuminati -- Augusto Illuminati Da Wikiquote, aforismi e citazioni in
libertà. Jump to navigationJump to search Augusto Illuminati (1937 – vivente),
filosofo italiano. La città e il
desiderio Le trascrizioni sono da
controllare e va specificata in bibliografia l'edizione di riferimento Le
trascrizioni sono da controllare e va specificata in bibliografia l'edizione di
riferimento Viene meno un modo di fare
in cui la soggettività potente si appropria il mondo subordinando le altre
potenze soggettive e realizza la sua essenza destinale mediante adeguati
meccanismi di rappresentazione e manipolazione tecnica. (pp. 108-109) Come
utilizzare regole pubblicamente valide senza colpevolizzare e controllare
dall'altro le forme di vita degli uomini è precisamente l'antinomia della
cittadinanza. (p. 109) La politicizzazione di sfere inabituali va insieme alla
diserzione di istituzioni sclerotiche. Una ricaduta pratica ne è l'integrazione
delle strutture rappresentative con nuove lobbies o la richiesta di quote per
minoranze (p. 115) Nel lasciar-essere che si contrappone alla tracotanza
istituzionale convivono cosi l'ancora-non-rappresentato che cerca
lobbisticamente rappresentazione, e rifiuto radicare di rappresentazione. (p.
115) Altri progetti Categoria: Filosofi italiani| [altre]
Incardona -- Nunzio Incardona Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump
to navigationJump to search Nunzio Incardona (1928 – 2003) è stato un filosofo
italiano, professore di filosofia teoretica nell'Università di Palermo. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Il
pensiero: breve sinossi 3 Opere
principali 4 Bibliografia
Biografia Ha studiato nel Liceo classico Ruggero Settimo. È stato direttore,
dal 1982, del Giornale di Metafisica, fondato da Michele Federico Sciacca. Tra
gli altri ha collaborato con Giuseppe Masi. La tematica fondamentale della
filosofia di Nunzio Incardona è la "filosofia del principio", un
percorso nella storia della filosofia occidentale e nel pensiero suoi
protagonisti volto all'interrogazione riguardo al fondamento e all'archè. Le
due categorie concettuali attraverso cui Incardona legge la storia della
filosofia sono l'arcaicità, identificata con Aristotele, e l'arcaismo,
identificato con Hegel. Aristotele ed Hegel sono infatti nella filosofia del
principio incardoniana le due porte, l'inizio e la fine, l'elemento e il
compimento della filosofia. Il percorso del pensiero è per Incardona un
percorso aporetico, in cui la dialettica assume l'aspetto di un dialogo senza
soluzione fra tensione naturale alla conoscenza e fallimento destinale
dell'impresa conoscitiva. A Nunzio Incardona è succeduto, nella direzione del
Giornale di Metafisica, Giuseppe Nicolaci. Incardona è un'importante figura
della filosofia italiana dell'ultimo novecento anche per l'influenza che ha
esercitato nel campo dell'ermeneutica e della filosofia continentale. Il suo
magistero ha portato alla creazione della scuola di Palermo. Il pensiero: breve sinossi Il contributo
determinante di Nunzio Incardona è stata la sua riflessione non scettica ma
aporetica sull'archè. La questione aristotelica dei principi (ontologici ed
epistemologici) e del principio (inteso in senso conoscitivo come principio di
non contraddizione e in senso teologico come Dio) viene colta da Incardona ed
elevata da questione logica a questione esistenziale. Compagni di strada
naturali, sebbene fortemente criticati dal filosofo palermitano, sono, in
questa sorta di teologia negativa, Jacques Derrida e Martin Heidegger. In essi
è infatti rintracciabile la tematica privativa e mistico-antirazionale del
rapporto con l'assoluto. L'unica cosa che si può dire dell'assoluto è che esso
non è alla nostra portata, esso nasconde al filosofo il volto come all'esule è
nascosta la patria. Sebbene Incardona veda nella filosofia post-hegeliana una
sorta di "pleonasmo" che non ha più alcuna utilità nella società
contemporanea (antifilosofia), sembra che le sue intuizioni più originali e più
feconde nascano proprio da una rielaborazione personale delle tematiche
ermeneutiche del secondo Heidegger.
Opere principali Idealismo della filosofia ed esperienza storica,
L'Epos, Palermo, 1995. Idealismo tedesco e neo-idealismo italiano, L'Epos,
Palermo, 1995. Gli inferi del principio. Interrogazione e invocazione, L'Epos,
Palermo, 1994. Karpòs, L'Epos, Palermo, 1991. Meditatio in curriculo mortis,
L'Epos, Palermo, 1990. Kéntron, L'Epos, Palermo, 1988. Bibliografia Rosaria
Caldarone, "L'inclusione dell’altro. Profilo di Giuseppe Nicolaci",
Epekeina. International Journal of Ontology, History and Critics, Vol. 9, N. 1
(2018) pp. 1-9. Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 59099409 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 3167
8472 · LCCN (EN) n79127069 · BNF (FR) cb12035843r (data) · WorldCat Identities
(EN) lccn-n79127069 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX secoloNati nel 1928Morti nel 2003[altre]
Infantino -- Lorenzo
Infantino Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search
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Lorenzo Infantino (Gioia Tauro, 8 gennaio 1948) è un filosofo ed economista
italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Pubblicazioni
3 Note
4 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Lorenzo Infantino (1948), filosofo ed economista, è
professore di Filosofia delle Scienze Sociali presso la LUISS Guido Carli di
Roma. Ha studiato economia, sociologia, politica e teoria della conoscenza. Ha
svolto la parte prevalente della sua ricerca presso l’Università di Oxford
(Linacre College). Sul “Times Literary Supplement”, Kenneth Minogue lo ha definito
uno “studioso di orientamento anglo-austriaco”. La sua attività intellettuale
si svolge infatti nel solco tracciato da Friedrich A. von Hayek che, com’è
noto, ha coniugato le acquisizioni di Mandeville e dei moralisti scozzesi con
quelle della Scuola Austriaca di Economia. Infantino si è intensamente
dedicato alla divulgazione di classiche opere della Scuola Austriaca, curando
l’edizione italiana di numerosi testi di Menger, Boehm-Bawerk, Mises e Hayek,
apparsi tutti presso la casa editrice Rubbettino, nella collana editoriale
“Biblioteca Austriaca”. Ha inoltre pubblicato importanti risultati della sua
ricerca, in quattro principali volumi. 1) L’ordine senza piano, apparso
originariamente in italiano nel 1995, che ha avuto poi varie riedizioni. Il testo
è stato pubblicato in inglese dalla Routledge di Londra nel 1998 e ha ricevuto
favorevoli recensioni da parte di Kenneth Minogue e Andrew Cohen; il libro è
stato tradotto anche in spagnolo dalla Union Editorial di Madrid. 2) Ignoranza
e libertà è apparso nel 1999 ed è stato pubblicato in inglese dalla Routledge
(2003) e in spagnolo dalla Union Editorial (2004). 3) Individualismo, mercato e
storia delle idee (2008), apparso anche in spagnolo, presso la Union Editorial
(2011). 4) Potere. La dimensione politica dell’azione umana (2013), la cui
versione inglese è stata pubblicata dalla Palgrave Macmillan (2020).
Lorenzo Infantino vede nelle conseguenze inintenzionali delle azioni umane
intenzionali l’oggetto delle scienze sociali, che vengono in tal modo affrancate
da qualsiasi psicologismo. È il tema sollevato da Mandeville e dai moralisti
scozzesi, ripreso poi con forza da Carl Menger e da Friedrich A. von Hayek. Non
sono le intenzioni dei singoli (o quelli che sono stati infelicemente chiamati
“spiriti animali”) a spiegare i fenomeni sociali. Occorre piuttosto individuare
le condizioni che rendono possibile o impossibile un dato evento. Tale
tradizione di ricerca ha come suo presupposto il riconoscimento dell’ignoranza
e della fallibilità umane. Da cui discende l’abbattimento del mito del “Grande
Legislatore”, il cui posto viene occupato dal processo sociale, cioè dalla
cooperazione volontaria. Questa costituisce un procedimento di esplorazione
dell’ignoto e di correzione degli errori. Ed è su tale teoria della società che
Infantino si muove per spiegare il fenomeno del potere, da lui studiato come
potere infrasociale, derivante cioè dall’interazione fra gli uomini, e il
potere pubblico, ossia il potere d’intervento dello Stato nella vita sociale.
La competizione minimizza il potere infrasociale, perché non c’è un’unica
persona che offre o un’unica persona che richiede. Il potere pubblico si
minimizza o si limita, attribuendo allo Stato un’esclusiva funzione di servizio
nei confronti della cooperazione sociale volontaria. Lorenzo Infantino ha
pubblicato di recente una raccolta di saggi, Cercatori di Libertà (Rubbettino,
2019), in cui è ospitato un suo scritto che ha fatto da introduzione alla
traduzione italiana del volume (A proposito di Rousseau), dedicato da David
Hume alla rottura dei suoi rapporti con Jean-Jacques Rousseau; gli altri saggi
della raccolta si occupano di Benjamin Constant, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A.
von Hayek, Bruno Leoni, Robert Nozick, José Ortega y Gasset, Luigi Einaudi.
Sempre nel 2019, Raimondo Cubeddu e Pietro Reichlin hanno curato un volume
(Rubbettino Editore) di scritti in onore di Lorenzo Infantino, a cui hanno
contribuito numerosi studiosi di ispirazione liberale. Nel 2008,
Infantino ha partecipato all’Austrian Colloquium della New York University, e
ha tenuto la Hayek Memorial Lecture presso il Ludwig von Mises Institute di
Auburn (Alabama). È stato per due volte presidente dell’Italian Linacre
Society; è presidente della Fondazione Hayek – Italia. Pubblicazioni Lorenzo
Infantino (a cura di) (a cura di), Sociologia dell'imperialismo:
interpretazioni liberali, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 1980, ISBN 88-204-1796-0.
Dall'utopia al totalitarismo: Marx, Dio e l'impossibile, Roma, Borla, 1985,
ISBN 88-263-0647-8. Ortega y Gasset: una introduzione, Roma, Armando, 1990,
ISBN 88-7144-193-1. Ludwig von Mises e la societa aperta, Roma, Quaderni del
Centro di metodologia delle scienze sociali – LUISS Guido Carli, 1992, ISBN non
esistente. L'ordine senza piano: le ragioni dell'individualismo metodologico,
Roma, NIS, 1995, ISBN 88-430-0373-9. L'ordine senza piano: le ragioni
dell'individualismo metodologico, 2ª ed., Roma, Armando, 1998, ISBN
88-7144-863-4. L'ordine senza piano: le ragioni dell'individualismo
metodologico, 3ª ed., Roma, Armando, 2008, ISBN 978-88-6081-404-3. (EN)
Individualism in Modern Thought: From Adam Smith to Hayek, Londra-New York,
Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-18524-6. (ES) El orden sin plan: las razones del
individualismo metodológico, Madrid, Union Editorial, 2000, ISBN 978-84-7209-357-7.
Metodo e mercato, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 1998, ISBN 88-7284-699-4.
Ignoranza e libertà, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 1999, ISBN 88-7284-841-5.
(EN) Ignorance and Liberty, Londra-New York, Routledge, 2000, ISBN
0-415-28573-9. (ES) Ignorancia y Libertad, Madrid, Union Editorial, 2004, ISBN
978-84-7209-405-5. Dario Antiseri e Lorenzo Infantino (a cura di), Destra e
sinistra due parole ormai inutili, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 1999, ISBN
88-7284-722-2. Dario Antiseri e Lorenzo Infantino (a cura di) Scuola austriaca
di economia: album di famiglia (a cura di), Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 1999,
ISBN 88-7284-822-9. (ES) Ensayos de Teorìa Econòmica, Madrid, Union Editorial,
1999, ISBN 978-84-7209-347-8. Dario Antiseri e Lorenzo Infantino (a cura di),
Le ragioni degli sconfitti: nella lotta per la scuola libera, Roma, Armando,
2000, ISBN 88-8358-052-4. Lorenzo Infantino e Nicola Iannello (a cura di) (a
cura di), Ludwig von Mises: le scienze sociali nella grande Vienna, Soveria
Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2004, ISBN 88-7284-841-5. Individualismo, mercato e
storia delle idee, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2008, ISBN 978-88-498-2163-5.
(ES) Individualismo, mercado y historia de las ideas, Madrid, Union Editorial,
2009, ISBN 978-84-7209-466-6. Potere. La dimensione politica dell'azione umana,
Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013, ISBN 978-88-498-3732-2. Nicola Iannello e
Lorenzo Infantino (a cura di), Idee di libertà. Economia, diritto, società,
Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2015, ISBN 978-88-498-4513-6. Cercatori di
libertà, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2018. Raimondo Cubeddu e Pietro Reichlin
(a cura di), Individuo, libertà e potere. Studi in onore di Lorenzo Infantino,
Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2019. Infrasocial Power. Political Dimensions of
Human Action, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2020. trad, inglese di Potere: la
dimensione politica dell'azione umana, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, 2013.
Note Collegamenti esterni (EN) Opere di Lorenzo Infantino, su Open
Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su Wikidata Registrazioni di Lorenzo
Infantino, su RadioRadicale.it, Radio Radicale. Modifica su Wikidata Controllo
di autorità VIAF (EN)
73905644 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 8153 6536 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\023564 · LCCN (EN)
n83219947 · GND (DE) 1139794930 · BNF (FR) cb12226421q (data) · BNE (ES)
XX1502512 (data) · NLA (EN) 36496893 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n83219947
Biografie Portale Biografie Economia Portale Economia Categorie: Filosofi
italiani del XXI secoloEconomisti italianiNati nel 1948Nati l'8 gennaioNati a
Gioia Tauro[altre]
IorioD’ Paolo D'Iorio Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to
navigationJump to search Paolo D'Iorio (Seravezza, 24 settembre 1963) è un
filosofo italiano. Indice 1 Biografia 2 Principali
pubblicazioni 3 Note
4 Voci
correlate Biografia Si è laureato in filosofia all'Università di Pisa con
Giuliano Campioni perfezionandosi poi alla Scuola Normale Superiore. È stato
borsista della Stiftung Weimarer Klassik di Weimar, dell'Università di Pisa
(formazione post-dottorale) e della Technische Universität di Berlino. Nel 1998
è stato assunto al Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique di Parigi. Nel 2001 ha ricevuto il premio Sofja
Kovalevskaja della Fondazione von Humboldt e del Ministero della ricerca
tedesco e ha diretto per alcuni anni un'équipe di ricerca all'università di
Monaco di Baviera. Dal 2007 al 2011 ha effettuato un soggiorno di ricerca a
Oxford come visiting fellow dell'Oxford Internet Institute e membro della
Maison Française d'Oxford e dell'Oxford e-Research Centre. Attualmente insegna all'École Normale
Supérieure di Parigi e dirige l'Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes
(ITEM).[1] Specialista di Nietzsche, si
è occupato del rapporto del filosofo con i suoi contemporanei e con la Grecia
antica. Si interessa inoltre dell'uso di Internet per l'edizione critica di
testi filosofici. È direttore editoriale di Nietzsche Source,[2] un sito web
dedicato alla pubblicazione di edizioni e altri contributi riguardanti la vita
e l'opera di Friedrich Nietzsche. I contenuti del sito possono essere
liberamente utilizzati per la ricerca e l'insegnamento. Principali pubblicazioni La linea e il
circolo. Cosmologia e filosofia dell'eterno ritorno in Nietzsche. Genova,
Pantograf, 1995 Le voyage de Nietzsche à Sorrente. Genèse de la philosophie de
l'esprit libre, Paris, CNRS Éditions, Juin 2012, pp. 246; trad. port. Nietzsche
na Itália A viagem que mudou os rumos da filosofia, Zahar, Rio de Janeiro,
2014; traduzione turca Nietzsche’nin Sorrento Yolculuğu, Isbank Culture
Publishing, Istanbul, 2015; traduzione spagnola El viaje de Nietzsche a
Sorrento. Una travesía crucial hacia el espíritu libre, Gedisa, Barcelona,
2016; traduzione americana Nietzsche’s Journey to Sorrento. Genesis of the
Philosoophy of the Free Spirit, University of Chicago Press, 2016. 'Friedrich
Nietzsche, Les philosophes préplatoniciens. Combas, l'éclat 1994 (prima
edizione in traduzione francese del manoscritto delle lezioni di Nietzsche sui
filosofi preplatonici, introdotta e commentata assieme a Francesco Fronterotta)
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Écrits de jeunesse" a cura di P. D'Iorio et F.
Fronterotta, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Oeuvres, vol. I, Bibliothèque de la
Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 2000, pp. 727–819, 1117-1150. Giuliano Campioni,
Paolo D'Iorio, Maria Cristina Fornari, Francesco Fronterotta, Andrea Orsucci,
unter Mitwirkung von Renate Müller-Buck, "Nietzsches persönliche
Bibliothek", De Gruyter, Berlin-New York, 2003, 736 p. Mazzino Montinari,
'La volonté de puissance' n'existe pas, a cura e con una postfazione di P.
D'Iorio, Paris, Éditions de l'éclat, 1996. Genesi, critica, edizione, a cura di
P. D'Iorio e N. Ferrand, Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 1999.
"Bibliothèques d'écrivains", sous la direction de Paolo D'Iorio et
Daniel Ferrer, Paris, éditions du CNRS, 2001, 214 p. HyperNietzsche. Modèle
d'un hypertexte savant sur Internet pour la recherche en sciences humaines.
Questions philosophiques, problèmes juridiques, outils informatiques", a cura
di Paolo D'Iorio. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2000, pp. 200. Paolo
D'Iorio, Michele Barbera, «Scholarsource: A Digital Infrastructure for the
Humanities», in Th. Bartscherer and R. Coover (éds.) "Switching Codes.
Thinking through New Technology in the Humanities and the Arts", Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 2011, pp. 61–87. Note ^ Pagina di Paolo D'Iorio
sul sito dell'ITEM/ENS ^ Nietzsche Source Voci correlate Friedrich Nietzsche
Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 57314210 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 1649 8024 · SBN IT\ICCU\MILV\138525 · LCCN
(EN) nr98023139 · BNF (FR) cb124526051 (data) · BAV (EN) 495/291391 · WorldCat
Identities (EN) lccn-nr98023139 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale
Filosofia Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI
secoloNati nel 1963Nati il 24 settembreNati a SeravezzaStudenti dell'Università
di PisaStudenti della Scuola Normale Superiore[altre]
IN-LATUM: illatum, f. illātĭo (inl- ), ōnis, f. in-fero,
a logical inference, conclusion: “vel illativum rogamentum. quod ex acceptionibus colligitur et infertur,” App. Dogm. Plat. 3,
pp. 34, 15. – infero: to conclude, infer, draw an inference, Cic. Inv. 1, 47, 87; Quint. 5, 11, 27. ILLATUM -- inference, the
process of drawing a conclusion from premises or assumptions, or, loosely, the
conclusion so drawn. An argument can be merely a number of statements of which
one is designated the conclusion and the rest are designated premises. Whether
the premises imply the conclusion is thus independent of anyone’s actual
beliefs in either of them. Belief, however, is essential to inference.
Inference occurs only if someone, owing to believing the premises, begins to
believe the conclusion or continues to believe the conclusion with greater
confidence than before. Because inference requires a subject who has beliefs,
some requirements of (an ideally) acceptable inference do not apply to abstract
arguments: one must believe the premises; one must believe that the premises
support the conclusion; neither of these beliefs induction, eliminative
inference 426 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 426 may be based on one’s
prior belief in the conclusion. W. E. Johnson called these the epistemic
conditions of inference. In a reductio ad absurdum argument that deduces a
self-contradiction from certain premises, not all steps of the argument will
correspond to steps of inference. No one deliberately infers a contradiction.
What one infers, in such an argument, is that certain premises are
inconsistent. Acceptable inferences can fall short of being ideally acceptable
according to the above requirements. Relevant beliefs are sometimes indefinite.
Infants and children infer despite having no grasp of the sophisticated notion
of support. One function of idealization is to set standards for that which
falls short. It is possible to judge how nearly inexplicit, automatic,
unreflective, lessthan-ideal inferences meet ideal requirements. In ordinary
speech, ‘infer’ often functions as a synonym of ‘imply’, as in ‘The new tax law
infers that we have to calculate the value of our shrubbery’. Careful
philosophical writing avoids this usage. Implication is, and inference is not,
a relation between statements. Valid deductive inference corresponds to a valid
deductive argument: it is logically impossible for all the premises to be true
when the conclusion is false. That is, the conjunction of all the premises and
the negation of the conclusion is inconsistent. Whenever a conjunction is
inconsistent, there is a valid argument for the negation of any conjunct from
the other conjuncts. (Relevance logic imposes restrictions on validity to avoid
this.) Whenever one argument is deductively valid, so is another argument that
goes in a different direction. (1) ‘Stacy left her slippers in the kitchen’
implies (2) ‘Stacy had some slippers’. Should one acquainted with Stacy and the
kitchen infer (2) from (1), or infer not-(1) from not-(2), or make neither
inference? Formal logic tells us about implication and deductive validity, but
it cannot tell us when or what to infer. Reasonable inference depends on
comparative degrees of reasonable belief. An inference in which every premise and
every step is beyond question is a demonstrative inference. (Similarly,
reasoning for which this condition holds is demonstrative reasoning.) Just as
what is beyond question can vary from one situation to another, so can what
counts as demonstrative. The term presumably derives from Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics. Understanding Aristotle’s views on demonstration requires
understanding his general scheme for classifying inferences. Not all inferences
are deductive. In an inductive inference, one infers from an observed
combination of characteristics to some similar unobserved combination.
‘Reasoning’ like ‘painting’, and ‘frosting’, and many other words, has a
process–product ambiguity. Reasoning can be a process that occurs in time or it
can be a result or product. A letter to the editor can both contain reasoning
and be the result of reasoning. It is often unclear whether a word such as
‘statistical’ that modifies the words ‘inference’ or ‘reasoning’ applies
primarily to stages in the process or to the content of the product. One view,
attractive for its simplicity, is that the stages of the process of reasoning
correspond closely to the parts of the product. Examples that confirm this view
are scarce. Testing alternatives, discarding and reviving, revising and
transposing, and so on, are as common to the process of reasoning as to other
creative activities. A product seldom reflects the exact history of its
production. In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, J. S. Mill
says that reasoning is a source from which we derive new truths (Chapter 14).
This is a useful saying so long as we remember that not all reasoning is
inference. -- inference to the best explanation, an inference by which one
concludes that something is the case on the grounds that this best explains
something else one believes to be the case. Paradigm examples of this kind of
inference are found in the natural sciences, where a hypothesis is accepted on
the grounds that it best explains relevant observations. For example, the
hypothesis that material substances have atomic structures best explains a
range of observations concerning how such substances interact. Inferences to
the best explanation occur in everyday life as well. Upon walking into your
house you observe that a lamp is lying broken on the floor, and on the basis of
this you infer that the cat has knocked it over. This is plausibly analyzed as
an inference to the best explanation; you believe that the cat has knocked over
the lamp because this is the best explanation for the lamp’s lying broken on
the floor. The nature of inference to the best explanation and the extent of
its use are both controversial. Positions that have been taken include: (a)
that it is a distinctive kind of inductive reasoning; (b) inference rule
inference to the best explanation 427 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 427
that all good inductive inferences involve inference to the best explanation;
and (c) that it is not a distinctive kind of inference at all, but is rather a
special case of enumerative induction. Another controversy concerns the
criteria for what makes an explanation best. Simplicity, cognitive fit, and
explanatory power have all been suggested as relevant merits, but none of these
notions is well understood. Finally, a skeptical problem arises: inference to
the best explanation is plausibly involved in both scientific and commonsense
knowledge, but it is not clear why the best explanation that occurs to a person
is likely to be true. -- inferential knowledge, a kind of “indirect” knowledge,
namely, knowledge based on or resulting from inference. Assuming that knowledge
is at least true, justified belief, inferential knowledge is constituted by a
belief that is justified because it is inferred from certain other beliefs. The
knowledge that 7 equals 7 seems non-inferential. We do not infer from anything
that 7 equals 7 – it is obvious and self-evident. The knowledge that 7 is the
cube root of 343, in contrast, seems inferential. We cannot know this without
inferring it from something else, such as the result obtained when multiplying
7 times 7 times 7. Two sorts of inferential relations may be distinguished. ‘I
inferred that someone died because the flag is at half-mast’ may be true
because yesterday I acquired the belief about the flag, which caused me to
acquire the further belief that someone died. ‘I inferentially believe that
someone died because the flag is at halfmast’ may be true now because I retain
the belief that someone died and it remains based on my belief about the flag.
My belief that someone died is thus either episodically or structurally
inferential. The episodic process is an occurrent, causal relation among belief
acquisitions. The structural basing relation may involve the retention of
beliefs, and need not be occurrent. (Some reserve ‘inference’ for the episodic
relation.) An inferential belief acquired on one basis may later be held on a
different basis, as when I forget I saw a flag at half-mast but continue to
believe someone died because of news reports. That “How do you know?” and
“Prove it!” always seem pertinent suggests that all knowledge is inferential, a
version of the coherence theory. The well-known regress argument seems to show,
however, that not all knowledge can be inferential, which is a version of
foundationalism. For if S knows something inferentially, S must infer it
correctly from premises S knows to be true. The question whether those premises
are also known inferentially begins either an infinite regress of inferences
(which is humanly impossible) or a circle of justification (which could not
constitute good reasoning). Which sources of knowledge are non-inferential
remains an issue even assuming foundationalism. When we see that an apple is
red, e.g., our knowledge is based in some manner on the way the apple looks.
“How do you know it is red?” can be answered: “By the way it looks.” This
answer seems correct, moreover, only if an inference from the way the apple
looks to its being red would be warranted. Nevertheless, perceptual beliefs are
formed so automatically that talk of inference seems inappropriate. In
addition, inference as a process whereby beliefs are acquired as a result of
holding other beliefs may be distinguished from inference as a state in which
one belief is sustained on the basis of others. Knowledge that is inferential
in one way need not be inferential in the other. When it came to rationality –
Grice was especially irritated by the adjective ‘theoretical’ as applied to
‘reason’. “Kant was cleverer when he used the metaphorical ‘pure’!” --
theoretical reason – Grice preferred ‘conversational reason.’ “There’s no need
to divide reason into pure and impure!’ -- in its traditional sense, a faculty
or capacity whose province is theoretical knowledge or inquiry; more broadly, the
faculty concerned with ascertaining truth of any kind also sometimes called
speculative reason. In Book 6 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle identifies
mathematics, physics, and theology as the subject matter of theoretical reason.
Theoretical reason is traditionally distinguished from practical reason, a
faculty exercised in determining guides to good conduct and in deliberating
about proper courses of action. Aristotle contrasts it, as well, with
productive reason, which is concerned with “making”: shipbuilding, sculpting,
healing, and the like. Kant distinguishes theoretical reason not only from
practical reason but also sometimes from the faculty of understanding, in which
the categories originate. Theoretical reason, possessed of its own a priori
concepts “ideas of reason”, regulates the activities of the understanding. It
presupposes a systematic unity in nature, sets the goal for scientific inquiry,
and determines the “criterion of empirical truth” Critique of Pure Reason.
Theoretical reason, on Kant’s conception, seeks an explanatory “completeness”
and an “unconditionedness” of being that transcend what is possible in
experience. Reason, as a faculty or capacity, may be regarded as a hybrid
composed of theoretical and practical reason broadly construed or as a unity
having both theoretical and practical functions. Some commentators take
Aristotle to embrace the former conception and Kant the latter. Reason is
contrasted sometimes with experience, sometimes with emotion and desire,
sometimes with faith. Its presence in human beings has often been regarded as
constituting the primary difference between human and non-human animals; and
reason is sometimes represented as a divine element in human nature. Socrates,
in Plato’s Philebus, portrays reason as “the king of heaven and earth.” Hobbes,
in his Leviathan, paints a more sobering picture, contending that reason, “when
we reckon it among the faculties of the mind, . . . is nothing but
reckoning that is, adding and subtracting of the consequences of general names agreed
upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts.”
IN-LUMINATUM:
illuminism:
d’Alembert, Jean Le Rond, philosopher, and Encyclopedist. According to Grimm,
d’Alembert was the prime luminary of the philosophic party. Cf. the French
ideologues that influenced Humboldt. An abandoned, illegitimate child, he
nonetheless received an outstanding education at the Jansenist Collège des
Quatre-Nations in Paris. He read law for a while, tried medicine, and settled
on mathematics. In 1743, he published an acclaimed Treatise of Dynamics.
Subsequently, he joined the Paris Academy of Sciences and contributed decisive
works on mathematics and physics. In 1754, he was elected to the Academy, of which he later became permanent
secretary. In association with Diderot, he launched the Encyclopedia, for which
he wrote the epoch-making Discours préliminaire 1751 and numerous entries on
science. Unwilling to compromise with the censorship, he resigned as coeditor
in 1758. In the Discours préliminaire, d’Alembert specified the divisions of
the philosophical discourse on man: pneumatology, logic, and ethics. Contrary
to Christian philosophies, he limited pneumatology to the investigation of the
human soul. Prefiguring positivism, his Essay on the Elements of Philosophy
1759 defines philosophy as a comparative examination of physical phenomena.
Influenced by Bacon, Locke, and Newton, d’Alembert’s epistemology associates
Cartesian psychology with the sensory origin of ideas. Though assuming the
universe to be rationally ordered, he discarded metaphysical questions as
inconclusive. The substance, or the essence, of soul and matter, is unknowable.
Agnosticism ineluctably arises from his empirically based naturalism.
D’Alembert is prominently featured in D’Alembert’s Dream 1769, Diderot’s
dialogical apology for materialism. Grice’s
illuminism – “reason enlightens us” Enlightenment, a late eighteenth-century
international movement in thought, with important social and political
ramifications. The Enlightenment is at once a style, an attitude, a temper critical, secular, skeptical, empirical, and
practical. It is also characterized by core beliefs in human rationality, in
what it took to be “nature,” and in the “natural feelings” of mankind. Four of
its most prominent exemplars are Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Kant, and Voltaire.
The Enlightenment belief in human rationality had several aspects. 1 Human
beings are free to the extent that their actions are carried out for a reason.
Actions prompted by traditional authority, whether religious or political, are
therefore not free; liberation requires weakening if not also overthrow of this
authority. 2 Human rationality is universal, requiring only education for its
development. In virtue of their common rationality, all human beings have
certain rights, among them the right to choose and shape their individual
destinies. 3 A final aspect of the belief in human rationality was that the
true forms of all things could be discovered, whether of the universe Newton’s
laws, of the mind associationist psychology, of good government the U.S.
Constitution, of a happy life which, like good government, was “balanced”, or
of beautiful architecture Palladio’s principles. The Enlightenment was
preeminently a “formalist” age, and prose, not poetry, was its primary means of
expression. The Enlightenment thought of itself as a return to the classical
ideas of the Grecians and more especially the Romans. But in fact it provided
one source of the revolutions that shook Europe and America at the end of the eighteenth
century, and it laid the intellectual foundations for both the generally
scientific worldview and the liberal democratic society, which, despite the
many attacks made on them, continue to function as cultural ideals.
IN-LUSUM: in-nludo -- illusion: Grice: “The etymology of illusion is fascinating – lusion
is of course from ludo, game, so ‘inludo’ is the verb we must be look for – if
you have an illusion, you are ‘playing with yourself’ -- cf. veridical
memories, who needs them? hallucination is Grice’s topic.Malcolm argues in
Dreaming and Skepticism and in his Dreaming that the notion of a dream qua
conscious experience that occurs at a definite time and has definite duration
during sleep, is unintelligible. This contradicts the views of philosophers
like Descartes (and indeed Moore!), who, Malcolm holds, assume that a human
being may have a conscious thought and a conscious experience during sleep.
Descartes claims that he had been deceived during sleep. Malcolms point is that
ordinary language contrasts consciousness and sleep. The claim that one is
conscious while one is sleep-walking is stretching the use of the term. Malcolm
rejects the alleged counter-examples based on sleepwalking or sleep-talking,
e.g. dreaming that one is climbing stairs while one is actually doing so is not
a counter-example because, in such a case, the individual is not sound asleep
after all. If a person is in any state of consciousness, it logically follows
that he is not sound asleep. The concept of dreaming is based on our
descriptions of dreams after we have awakened in telling a dream. Thus, to have
dreamt that one has a thought during sleep is not to have a thought any more
than to have dreamt that one has climbed Everest is to have climbed Everest.
Since one cannot have an experience during sleep, one cannot have a mistaken
experience during sleep, thereby undermining the sort of scepticism based on
the idea that our experience might be wrong because we might be dreaming.
Malcolm further argues that a report of a conscious state during sleep is
unverifiable. If Grice claims that he and Strawson saw a big-foot in charge of
the reserve desk at the Bodleian library, one can verify that this took place
by talking to Strawson and gathering forensic evidence from the library.
However, there is no way to verify Grices claim that he dreamed that he and
Strawson saw a big-foot working at the Bodleian. Grices only basis for his
claim that he dreamt this is that Grice says so after he wakes up. How does one
distinguish the case where Grice dreamed that he saw a big-foot working at The
Bodleian and the case in which he dreamed that he saw a person in a big-foot
suit working at the library but, after awakening, mis-remembered that person in
a big-foot suit as a big-foot proper? If Grice should admit that he had earlier
mis-reported his dream and that he had actually dreamed he saw a person in a
big-foot suit at The Bodleian, there is no more independent verification for
this new claim than there was for the original one. Thus, there is, for
Malcolm, no sense to the idea of mis-remembering ones dreams. Malcolm here
applies one of Witters ideas from his private language argument. One would like
to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that
here we cannot talk about right. For a similar reason, Malcolm challenges the
idea that one can assign a definite duration or time of occurrence to a dream.
If Grice claims that he ran the mile in 3.4 minutes, one could verify this in
the usual ways. If, however, Grice says he dreamt that he ran the mile in 3.4
minutes, how is one to measure the duration of his dreamt run? If Grice says he
was wearing a stopwatch in the dream and clocked his run at 3.4 minutes, how
can one know that the dreamt stopwatch is not running at half speed (so that he
really dreamt that he ran the mile in 6.8 minutes)? Grice might argue that a
dream report does not carry such a conversational implicatura. But Malcolm
would say that just admits the point. The ordinary criteria one uses for determining
temporal duration do not apply to dreamt events. The problem in both these
cases (Grice dreaming one saw a bigfoot working at The Bodleian and dreaming
that he ran the mile in 3.4 minutes) is that there is no way to verify the
truth of these dreamt events — no direct way to access that dreamt inner
experience, that mysterious glow of consciousness inside the mind of Grice
lying comatose on the couch, in order to determine the facts of the matter.
This is because, for Malcolm, there are no facts of the matter apart from the report
by the dreamer of the dream upon awakening. Malcolm claims that the empirical
evidence does not enable one to decide between the view that a dream experience
occurs during sleep and the view that they are generated upon the moment of
waking up. Dennett agrees with Malcolm that nothing supports the received view
that a dream involves a conscious experience while one is asleep but holds that
such issues might be settled empirically. Malcolm also argues against the
attempt to provide a physiological mark of the duration of a dream, for
example, the view that the dream lasted as long as the rapid eye movements.
Malcolm replies that there can only be as much precision in that common concept
of dreaming as is provided by the common criterion of dreaming. These
scientific researchers are misled by the assumption that the provision for the
duration of a dream is already there, only somewhat obscured and in need of
being made more precise. However, Malcolm claims, it is not already there (in
the ordinary concept of dreaming). These scientific views are making radical
conceptual changes in the concept of dreaming, not further explaining our
ordinary concept of dreaming. Malcolm admits, however, that it might be natural
to adopt such scientific views about REM sleep as a convention. Malcolm points
out, however, that if REM sleep is adopted as a criterion for the occurrence of
a dream, people would have to be informed upon waking up that they had
dreamed or not. As Pears observes, Malcolm does not mean to deny that people
have dreams in favour of the view that they only have waking dream-behaviour.
Of course it is no misuse of language to speak of remembering a dream. His
point is that since the concept of dreaming is so closely tied to our concept
of waking report of a dreams, one cannot form a coherent concept of this
alleged inner (private) something that occurs with a definite duration during
sleep. Malcolm rejects a certain philosophical conception of dreaming, not the
ordinary concept of dreaming, which, he holds, is neither a hidden private
something nor mere outward behaviour.The account of dreaming by Malcolm has
come in for considerable criticism. Some argue that Malcolms claim that
occurrences in dreams cannot be verified by others does not require the strict
criteria that Malcolm proposes but can be justified by appeal to the
simplicity, plausibility, and predictive adequacy of an explanatory system as a
whole. Some argue that Malcolms account of the sentence I am awake is inconsistent.
A comprehensive programme in considerable detail has been offered for an
empirical scientific investigation of dreaming of the sort that Malcolm
rejects. Others have proposed various counterexamples and counter arguments
against dreaming by Malcolm. Grices emphasis is in Malcolms easy way out with
statements to the effect that implicatura do or do not operate in dream
reports. They do in mine! Grice considers, I may be dreaming in the two essays
opening the Part II: Explorations on semantics and metaphysics in WOW. Cf.
Urmson on ‘delusion’ in ‘Parentheticals’ as ‘conceptually impossible.’ Refs.: The
main reference is Grice’s essay on ‘Dreaming,’ but there are scattered
references in his treatment of Descartes, and “The causal theory of perception”
(henceforth, “Causal theory”), The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
IMITATVM
– Imago -- imaginatum – imago – from “imago” – imago)
"copy, imitation, likeness; statue, picture," also "phantom,
ghost, apparition," figuratively "idea, appearance," from stem
of imitari "to copy, imitate" (from PIE root *aim- "to
copy").
The root of ‘imago’ is cognate with that
of ‘emulate,’ aemulatum – and the verb is under imitor -- Discussed by Grice in “Vacuous Names.” A population may imagine
that a certain expeditioner, Marmaduke Bloggs, climbed Mt. Everest on hands and
knees. He is the imaginatum. imagination:
referred to by Grice in “Prolegomena” – the rabbit that looks like a duck --
the mental faculty sometimes thought to encompass all acts of thinking about
something novel, contrary to fact, or not currently perceived; thus: “Imagine
that Lincoln had not been assassinated,” or “Use your imagination to create a
new design for roller skates.” ‘Imagination’ also denotes an important
perception-like aspect of some such thoughts, so that to imagine something is
to bring to mind what it would be like to perceive it. Philosophical theories
of imagination must explain its apparent intentionality: when we imagine, we
always imagine something. Imagination is always directed toward an object, even
though the object may not exist. Moreover, imagination, like perception, is
often seen as involving qualia, or special subjective properties that are
sometimes thought to discredit materialist, especially functionalist, theories
of mind. The intentionality of imagination and its perceptual character lead
some theories to equate imagination with “imaging”: being conscious of or
perceiving a mental image. However, because the ontological status of such
images and the nature of their properties are obscure, many philosophers have
rejected mental images in favor of an adverbial theory on which to imagine
something red is best analyzed as imagining “redly.” Such theories avoid the
difficulties associated with mental images, but must offer some other way to account
for the apparent intentionality of imagination as well as its perceptual
character. Imagination, in the hands of Husserl and Sartre, becomes a
particularly apt subject for phenomenology. It is also cited as a faculty that
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separates human thought from any form of artificial intelligence. Finally,
imagination often figures prominently in debates about possibility, in that
what is imaginable is often taken to be coextensive with what is possible.
IN-MANENS
-- anens,
a term most often used in contrast to ‘transcendence’ to express the way in
which God is thought to be present in the world. The most extreme form of
immanence is expressed in pantheism, which identifies God’s substance either
partly or wholly with the world. In contrast to pantheism, Judaism and
Christianity hold God to be a totally separate substance from the world. In
Christianity, the separateness of God’s substance from that of the world is
guaranteed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Aquinas held that God is in
the world as an efficient cause is present to that on which it acts. Thus, God
is present in the world by continuously acting on it to preserve it in
existence. Perhaps the weakest notion of immanence is expressed in eighteenth-
and nineteenthcentury deism, in which God initially creates the world and
institutes its universal laws, but is basically an absentee landlord,
exercising no providential activity over its continuing history.
INTER-PRETATVM
-- interpretatum: h
“While ‘heremneia’ sounds poetic and sweet, ‘interpretatio’ sounds thomistic
and rough!” – H. P. Grice. “Plus ‘hermeneia is metaphorical.’ hermeneia:
hermeneutics, the art or theory of interpretation, as well as a type of
philosophy that starts with questions of interpretation. Originally concerned
more narrowly with interpreting sacred texts, the term acquired a much broader
significance in its historical development and finally became a philosophical
position in twentieth-century G. philosophy. There are two competing positions
in hermeneutics: whereas the first follows Dilthey and sees interpretation or
Verstehen as a method for the historical and human sciences, the second follows
Heidegger and sees it as an “ontological event,” an interaction between
interpreter and text that is part of the history of what is understood.
Providing rules or criteria for understanding what an author or native “really”
meant is a typical problem for the first approach. The interpretation of the
law provides an example for the second view, since the process of applying the
law inevitably transforms it. In general, hermeneutics is the analysis of this
process and its conditions of possibility. It has typically focused on the
interpretation of ancient texts and distant peoples, cases where the
unproblematic everyday understanding and communication cannot be assumed.
Schleiermacher’s analysis of understanding and expression related to texts and
speech marks the beginning of hermeneutics in the modern sense of a scientific
methodology. This emphasis on methodology continues in nineteenth-century
historicism and culminates in Dilthey’s attempt to ground the human sciences in
a theory of interpretation, understood as the imaginative but publicly
verifiable reenactment of the subjective experiences of others. Such a method
of interpretation reveals the possibility of an objective knowledge of human
beings not accessible to empiricist inquiry and thus of a distinct methodology
for the human sciences. One result of the analysis of interpretation in the
nineteenth century was the recognition of “the hermeneutic circle,” first
developed by Schleiermacher. The circularity of interpretation concerns the
relation of parts to the whole: the interpretation of each part is dependent on
the interpretation of the whole. But interpretation is circular in a stronger
sense: if every interpretation is itself based on interpretation, then the
circle of interpretation, even if it is not vicious, cannot be escaped.
Twentieth-century hermeneutics advanced by Heidegger and Gadamer radicalize
this notion of the hermeneutic circle, seeing it as a feature of all knowledge
and activity. Hermeneutics is then no longer the method of the human sciences
but “universal,” and interpretation is part of the finite and situated
character of all human knowing. “Philosophical hermeneutics” therefore
criticizes Cartesian foundationalism in epistemology and Enlightenment
universalism in ethics, seeing science as a cultural practice and prejudices or
prejudgments as ineliminable in all judgments. Positively, it emphasizes
understanding as continuing a historical tradition, as well as dialogical
openness, in which prejudices are challenged and horizons broadened.
IN-PERATVM -- imperatum – While of course there is a verb in the infinitive for
this, Grice prefers the past participle – “It’s so diaphanous!” -- This starts
with the Greeks, who had the klesis porstktike, modus imperativus. But then,
under the modus subjunctives, the Romans added the modus prohibitivus. So this
is interesting, because it seems that most of Grice’s maxims are
‘prohibitions’: “Do not say what you believe to be false.” “Do not that for
which you lack adequate evidence.” And some while formally in the
‘affirmative,’ look prohibitive with ‘negative-loaded’ verbs like ‘avoid
ambiguity,’ etc. hile an imperatus, m. is a command, ‘imperatum’ refers,
diaphanously, to what is commanded. “Impero” is actually a derivation from the
intensive “in-“ and the “paro,” as in “prepare,” “Paratum” would thus reflect
the ssame cognateness with ‘imperatum.” Modus imperativus -- imperative mode: At one
point, Grice loved the “psi,” Actions are alright, but we need to stop at the
psi level. The emissor communicates that the addressee thinks that the emissor
has propositional attitude psi. No need to get into the logical form of action.
One can just do with the logical form of a ‘that’-clause in the ascription of a
state of the soul. This should usually INVOLVE an action, as in Hare, “The door
is shut, please.” like Hare, Grice loves an imperative. In this essay, Grice
attempts an exploration of the logical form of Kant’s concoction. Grice is
especially irritated by the ‘the.’ ‘They speak of Kant’s categorical
imperative, when he cared to formulate a few versions of it!” Grice lists them
all in Abbott’s version. There are nine of them! Grice is interested in the conceptual
connection of the categorical imperative with the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, in terms of the type of connection between the protasis and the
apodosis. Grice spends the full second Carus lecture on the conception of
value on this. Grice is aware that the topic is central to Oxonian
philosophers such as Hare, a member of Austin’s Play Group, too, who regard the
universability of an imperative as a mark of its categoricity, and indeed,
moral status. Grice chose some of the Kantian terminology on purpose.Grice
would refer to this or that ‘conversational maxim.’A ‘conversational maxim’
contributes to what Grice jocularly refers to as the ‘conversational
immanuel.’But there is an admission test.The ‘conversational maxim’ has to be
shown that, qua items under an overarching principle of conversational
helpfulness, the maxim displays a quality associated with conceptual, formal,
and applicational generality. Grice never understood what Kant meant by the
categoric imperative. But for Grice, from the acceptability of the the immanuel
you can deduce the acceptability of this or that maxim, and from the
acceptability of the conversational immanuel, be conversationally helpful, you
can deduce the acceptability of this or that convesational maxim. Grice hardly
considered Kants approach to the categoric imperative other than via the
universability of this or that maxim. This or that conversational maxim,
provided by Grice, may be said to be universalisable if and only if it displays
what Grice sees as these three types of generality: conceptual, formal, and
applicational. He does the same for general maxims of conduct. The results are
compiled in a manual of universalisable maxims, the conversational immanuel, an
appendix to the general immanuel. The other justification by Kant of the
categoric imperative involve an approach other than the genitorial
justification, and an invocation of autonomy and freedom. It is the use by
Plato of imperative as per categoric imperative that has Grice expanding on
modes other than the doxastic, to bring in the buletic, where the categoric
imperative resides. Note that in the end Kant DOES formulate the categoric imperative,
as Grice notes, as a real imperative, rather than a command, etc. Grice loved
Kant, but he loved Kantotle best. In the last Kant lecture, he proposes to
define the categorical imperative as a counsel of prudence, with a protasis Let
Grice be happy. The derivation involves eight stages! Grice found out that out
of his play-group activities with this or that linguistic nuance he had arrived
at the principle, or imperative of conversational helpfulness, indeed
formulated as an imperative: Make your contribution such as is required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of the conversation in which
you are engaged. He notes that the rationality behind the idea of conversation
as rational co-operation does not preclude seeing rationality in conversation
as other than cooperation. The fact that he chooses maxim, and explicitly
echoes Kant, indicates where Grice is leading! An exploration on Paton on the
categorical imperative. Grice had previously explored the logical form of
hypothetical or suppositional imperatives in the Kant (and later Locke)
lectures, notably in Lecture IV, Further remarks on practical and alethic
reasons. Here he considers topics related to Hares
tropic-clistic neustic-phrastic quartet. What does it mean to say that a command
is conditional? The two successors of Grices post as Tutorial Fellow at
St. Johns, Baker Hacker, will tackle the same issue with humour, in Sense and
nonsense, published by Blackwell (too irreverent to be published by
the Clarendon). Is the logical form of a maxim, .p⊃!q, or !(.p ⊃.q),
etc. Kant thought that there is a special
sub-class of hypothetical or suppositional imperative (which he
called a counsels of prudence) which is like his class of technical imperative,
except in that the end specified in a full specfication of the imperative is
the special end of eudæmonia (the agents eudæmonia). For
Grice, understanding Kant’s first version of the categorical imperative
involves understanding what a maxim is supposed to be. Grice
explores at some length four alternative interpretations of an
iffy buletic (as opposed to a non-iffy buletic): three formal, one material.
The first interpretation is the horseshoe interpretation. A blind logical
nose might lead us or be led to the assumption of a link between a
buletically iffy utterance and a doxastically iffy utterance. Such a link
no doubt exists, but the most obvious version of it is plainly
inadequate. At least one other philosopher besides Grice has noticed that If he
torments the cat, have him arrested! is unlikely to express an
buletically iffy utterance, and that even if one restricts oneself to
this or that case in which the protasis specifies a will, we find pairs of
examples like If you will to go to Oxford, travel by AA via Richmond! or
If you will to go to Cambridge, see a psychiatrist! where it is plain that one
is, and the other is not, the expression of a buletically iffy utterance. For
fun, Grice does not tell which! A less easily eliminable suggestion, yet one
which would still interprets the notion of a buletically iffy utterance in
terms of that particular logical form to which if, hypothetical or
suppositional and conditional attach,
would be the following. Let us assume that it is established, or conceded, as
legitimate to formulate an if utterance in which not only the apodosis is
couched in some mode other than the doxastic, as in this or that conditional
command. If you see the whites of their eyes, shoot fire! but also the protasis
or some part (clause) of them. In which case all of the following might be
admissible conditionals. Thus, we might have a doxastic protasis (If the cat is
sick, take it to the vet), or a mixed (buletic-cum-doxastic protasis (If you
are to take the cat to the vet and theres no cage available, put it on Marthas
lap!), and buletic protasis (If you are to take the cat to the vet, put it in a
cage!). If this suggestion seems rebarbative, think of this or that quaint if
utterance (when it is quaint) as conditionalised versions of this or that
therefore-sequence, such as: buletic-cum-doxastic premises (Take the cat
to the vet! There isnt a cage. Therefore; Put the cat on Marthas lap!), buletic
premise (Take the cat to the vet! Put it in a cage!). And then, maybe, the
discomfort is reduced. Grice next considers a second formal interpretation or
approach to the buletically iffy/non-iffy utterance. Among if utterances with a
buletic apodosis some will have, then, a mixed doxastic-cum buletic protasis
(partly doxastic, partly buletic), and some will have a purely doxastic
protasis (If the cat is sick, take him to the vet!). Grice proposes a
definition of the iffy/non-iffy distinction. A buletically iffy utterance is an
iffy utterance the apodosis of which is buletic and the protasis of which is
buletic or mixed (buletic-cum-dxastic) or it is an elliptical version of such
an iffy utterance. A buletically non-iffy utterance is a buletic utterance
which is not iffy or else, if it is iffy, has a purely doxastic protasis. Grice
makes three quick comments on this second interpretation. First, re: a real
imperative. The structures which are being offered as a way of interpreting an
iffy and a non-iffy imperative do not, as they stand, offer any room for
the appearance this or that buletic modality like ought and should which are so
prominently visible in the standard examples of those kinds of imperatives. The
imperatives suggested by Grice are explicit imperatives. An explicit buletic
utterance is Do such-and-such! and not You ought to do such and such or, worse,
One ought to do such and such. Grice thinks, however, that one can modify this
suggestion to meet the demand for the appearance or occurrence of ought (etc)
if such occurrence is needed. Second, it would remain to be decided how close
the preferred reading of Grices deviant conditional imperatives would be to the
accepted interpretation of standard hypothetical or
suppositional imperatives. But even if there were some divergence that
might be acceptable if the new interpretation turns out to embody a more
precise notion than the standard conception. Then theres the neustical versus
tropical protases. There are, Grice thinks, serious doubts of the admissibility
of conditionals with a NON-doxastic protasis, which are for Grice connected
with the very difficult question whether the doxastic and the buletic modes are
co-ordinate or whether the doxastic mode is in some crucial fashion (but
not in other) prior (to use Suppess qualification) to the buletic. Grice
confesses he does not know the answer to that question. A third formal interpretation links
the iffy/non-iffy distinction to the absolute-relative value distinction. An
iffy imperatives would be end-relative and might be analogous
to an evidence-relative probability. A non-iffy imperatives would not
be end-relative. Finally, a fourth Interpretation is not formal, but
material. This is close to part of what Kant says on the topic. It is a
distinction between an imperative being escapable (iffy), through the
absence of a particular will and its not being escapable (non-iffy). If
we understand the idea of escabability sufficiently widely, the
following imperatives are all escapable, even though their logical form is
not in every case the same: Give up popcorn!, To get slim, give up
popcorn!, If you will to get slim, give up popcorn! Suppose Grice has no
will to get slim. One might say that the first imperative (Give up
popcorn!) is escaped, provided giving up popcorn has nothing else
to recommend it, by falsifying You should give up popcorn. The
second and the third imperatives (To get slim, give up pocorn! and If
you will to get slim, give up popcorn!) would not, perhaps, involve
falsification but they would, in the circumstances, be inapplicable
to Grice – and inapplicability, too, counts, as escape. A non-iffy
imperative however, is in no way escapable. Re: the Dynamics of
Imperatives in Discourse, Grice then gives three examples which he had
discussed in “Aspects,” which concern arguments (or therefore-chains). This we
may see as an elucidation to grasp the logical form of buletically iffy
utterance (elided by the therefore, which is an if in the metalanguage)
in its dynamics in argumentation. We should, Grice suggests,
consider not merely imperatives of each sort, together with the range
of possible characterisations, but also the possible forms of argument into
which_particular_ hypothetical or suppositional imperatives might enter.
Consider: Defend the Philosophy Department! If you are to defend the
philosophy department, learn to use bows and arrows! Therefore, learn to
use bows and arrows! Grice says he is using the dichotomy of original-derived
value. In this example, in the first premise, it is not specified whether the
will is original or derived, the second premise specifies conducive to (means),
and the conclusion would involve a derived will, provided the second premise is
doxastically satisfactory. Another example would be: Fight for your country! If
you are to fight for your country, join up one of the services! Therefore, join
up! Here, the first premise and the conclusion do not specify the protasis. If
the conclusion did, it would repeat the second premise. Then theres Increase
your holdings in oil shares! If you visit your father, hell give you some oil
shares. Therefore, visit your father! This argument (purportedly) transmits
value. Let us explore these characterisations by Grice with the aid of
Hares distinctions. For Hare in a hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the
protasis contains a neustic-cum-tropic. A distinction may be made between this
or that hypothetical or suppositional imperative and a term used by Grice
in his first interpretation of the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, that of conditional command (If you see the whites of their
eyes, shoot fire!). A hypothetical or suppositional imperative can
be distinguished from a conditional imperative (If you want to make bread,
use yeast! If you see anything suspicious, telephone the police!) by the
fact that modus ponens is not valid for it. One may use hypothetical,
suppositional or conditional imperative for a buletic utterance which features
if, and reserve conditional command for a command which is expressed by an
imperative, and which is conditional on the satisfaction of the protasis.
Thus, on this view, treating the major premise of an argument as a
hypothetical or suppositional imperative turns the therefore-chain invalid.
Consider the sequence with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative. If you will to make someone mad, give him drug D! You
will to make Peter mad; therefore, give Peter drug D! By uttering this
hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the utterer tells his addressee A
only what means to adopt to achieve a given end in a way which
does not necessarily endorse the adoption of that end, and hence of
the means to it. Someone might similarly say, if you will to make
someone mad, give him drug D! But, of course, even if you will to do
that, you must not try to do so. On the other hand, the
following is arguably valid because the major premise is a
conditional imperative and not a mere hypothetical or suppositional
one. We have a case of major premise as a conditional imperative: You will to
make someone mad, give him drug D! Make Peter mad! Therefore, give
Peter drug D!. We can explain this in terms of the presence of the neustic
in the antecedent of the imperative working as the major premise.
The supposition that the protasis of a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative contains a clause in the buletic mode neatly explains why the
argument with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative is not valid. But the argument with the major premise as a
conditional imperative is, as well as helping to differentiate a
suppositional or hypothetical or suppositional iffy imperative from a
conditional iffy imperative. For, if the protasis of the major premise in the
hypothetical or suppositional imperative is volitival, the mere fact that
you will to make Peter mad does not license the inference of the
imperative to give him the drug; but this _can_ be inferred from the
major premise of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative
together with an imperative, the minor premise in the conditional
imperative, to make Peter mad. Whether the subordinate
clause contains a neustic thus does have have a consequence as
to the validity of inferences into which the complex sentence
enters. Then theres an alleged principle of mode constancy in buletic and
and doxastic inference. One may tries to elucidate Grices ideas on the
logical form of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative proper.
His suggestion is, admittedly, rather tentative. But it might be
argued, in the spirit of it, that an iffy imperative is of the
form ((!p⊃!q) Λ .p)) ∴ !q
But this violates a principle of mode constancy. A phrastic must
remain in the same mode (within the scope of the same tropic) throughout
an argument. A conditional imperative does not violate the principle of
Modal Constancy, since it is of the form ((p⊃!q) Λ
!p)) ∴ !q The question of the logical form of
the hypothetical or suppositional imperative is
too obscure to base much on arguments concerning it. There is an
alternative to Grices account of the validity of an argument featuring a conditional
imperative. This is to treat the major premise of a conditional
imperative, as some have urged it should be as a doxastic utterance tantamount
to In order to make someone mad, you have to give him drug D. Then an
utterer who explicitly conveys or asserts the major premise of a conditional
imperative and commands the second premise is in consistency committed to
commanding the conclusion. If does not always connect phrastic with
phrastic but sometimes connects two expressions consisting of a phrastic
and a tropic. Consider: If you walk past the post office, post the
letter! The antecedent of this imperative states, it seems, the
condition under which the imperative expressed becomes operative,
and so can not be construed buletically, since by uttering a buletic
utterance, an utterer cannot explicitly convey or assert that a condition
obtains. Hence, the protasis ought not be within the scope of the
buletic !, and whatever we take to represent the form of the
utterance above we must not take !(if p, q) to do so. One way out. On
certain interpretation of the isomorphism or æqui-vocality Thesis between
Indicative and Imperative Inference the utterance has to be construed
as an imperative (in the generic reading) to make the doxasatic
conditional If you will walk past the post office, you will post
the letter satisfactory. Leaving aside issues of the implicaturum of if,
that the utterance can not be so construed seems to be shown by
the fact that the imperative to make the associated doxastically iffy
utterance satisfactory is conformed with by one who does not walk past the
post office. But it seems strange at best to say that the utterance
is conformed with in the same circumstances. This strangeness or
bafflingliness, as Grice prefers, is aptly explained away in terms of the implicaturum.
At Oxford, Dummett is endorsing this idea that a
conditional imperative be construed as an imperative to make an
indicative if utterance true. Dummett urges to divide conditional
imperatives into those whose antecedent is within the power of
the addressee, like the utterance in question, and those in which it
is not. Consider: If you go out, wear your coat! One may be not so much
concerned with how to escape this, as Grice is, but how to conform it. A child
may choose not to go out in order to comply with the imperative. For an
imperative whose protasis is_not_ within the power of the addressee (If anyone
tries to escape, shoot him!) it is indifferent whether we treat it as a
conditional imperative or not, so why bother. A small
caveat here. If no one tries to escape, the imperative is *not violated*.
One might ask, might there not be an important practical difference
bewteen saying that an imperative has not been violated and that
it has been complied with? Dummett ignores this distinction. One may
feel think there is much of a practical difference there. Is Grice
an intuitionist? Suppose that you are a frontier guard and
the antecedent has remained unfulfilled. Then, whether we say that you
complied with it, or simply did not *violate* it will make a great
deal of difference if you appear before a war crimes tribunal.
For Dummett, the fact that in the case of an imperative expressed by a
conditional imperative in which the antecedent is not within the agents power,
we should *not* say that the agent had obeyed just on the ground that the
protassi is false, is no ground for construing an imperative as expressing a
conditional command: for there is no question of fixing what shall
constitute obedience independently of the determination of what shall
constitute disobedience. This complicates the issues. One may with Grice (and
Hare, and Edgley) defend imperative inference against other Oxonian
philosophers, such as Kenny or Williams. What is questioned by the sceptics about imperative
inference is whether if each one of a set of imperatives is used with
the force of a command, one can infer a _further_ imperative with that
force from them. Cf. Wiggins on Aristotle on the practical syllogism. One
may be more conservative than Hare, if not Grice. Consider If you stand by
Jane, dont look at her! You stand by Jane; therefore, dont look at her! This is
valid. However, the following, obtained by anti-logism, is not: If you stand by
Jane, dont look at her! Look at her! Therefore, you dont stand by Jane. It may
seem more reasonable to some to deny Kants thesis, and maintain that
anti-logism is valid in imperative inference than it is to hold onto Kants
thesis and deny that antilogism is valid in the case in question. Then theres the
question of the implicatura involved in the ordering of modes. Consider:
Varnish every piece of furniture you make! You are going to make a table;
therefore, varnish it! This is prima facie valid. The following, however,
switching the order of the modes in the premises is not. You are going to
varnish every piece of furniture that you make. Make a table! Therefore;
varnish it! The connection between the if and the therefore is metalinguistic,
obviously – the validity of the therefore chain is proved by the associated if
that takes the premise as, literally, the protasis and the consequence as the
apodosis. Conversational Implicaturum at the Rescue. Problems with
or: Consider Rosss infamous example: Post the letter! Therefore, post the
letter or burn it! as invalid, Ross – and endorsed at Oxford by Williams.
To permit to do p or q is to permit to do p and to permit to do q.
Similarly, to give permission to do something is to lift a prohibition
against doing it. Admittedly, Williams does not need this so we are
stating his claim more strongly than he does. One may review Grices way
out (defense of the validity of the utterance above in terms of the implicaturum.
Grice claims that in Rosss infamous example (valid, for Grice), whilst (to
state it roughly) the premises permissive presupposition (to use the
rather clumsy term introduced by Williams) is entailed by it, the
conclusions is only conversationally implicated. Typically for an
isomorphist, Grice says this is something shared by
indicative inferences. If, being absent-minded, Grice asks his wife, What
have I done with the letter? And she replies, You have posted it or burnt it,
she conversationally implicates that she is not in a position to say which
Grice has done. She also conversationally implicates that Grice may not have
post it, so long as he has burnt it. Similarly, the future tense indicative, You
are going to post the letter has the conversational implicaturum You may be not
going to post the letter so long as you are going to burn it. But this surely
does not validate the introduction rule for OR, to wit: p; therefore, p
or q. One can similarly, say: Eclipse will win. He may not, of course, if it
rains. And I *know* it will *not* rain. Problems with and. Consider: Put on
your parachute AND jump out! Therefore, jump out! Someone who _only_ jumps out
of an æroplane does not fulfil Put on your parachute and jump out!
He has done only what is necessary, but not sufficient to fulfil it.
Imperatives do not differ from indicatives in this respect, except that
fulfilment takes the place of belief or doxa, which is the form of acceptance
apprpriate to a doxasatic utterance, as the Names implies. Someone who is
told Smith put on his parachute AND jumped out is entitled to believe
that Smith jumped out. But if he believes that this is _all_ Smith did he
is in error (Cf. Edgley). One may discuss Grices test of cancellability in the
case of the transport officer who says: Go via Coldstream or Berwick! It seems
the transport officers way of expressing himself is extremely eccentric,
or conversationally baffling, as Grice prefers – yet validly. If the transport
officer is not sure if a storm may block one of the routes, what he
should say is _Prepare_ to go via Coldstream or Berwick! As for the application
of Grices test of explicit cancellation here, it yield, in the circumstances,
the transport officer uttering Go either via Coldstream or
Berwick! But you may not go via Coldstream if you do not go via
Berwick, and you may not go via Berwick if you do not go via Coldstream. Such
qualifications ‒ what Grice calls explicit cancellation of the implicaturum ‒
seem to the addressee to empty the buletic mode of utterance of all content and
is thus reminiscent of Henry Fords utterance to the effect that people can choose
what colour car they like provided it is black. But then Grice doesnt think
Ford is being illogical, only Griceian and implicatural! Grice was fascinated
by “if” clauses in mode other than the indicative: “if the cat is on the mat,
she is purring.” “If the cat had been, make her purr!” etc. He spent years at
Clifton mastering this – only to have Ayer telling him at Oxford he didn’t need
it! “I won’t take that!” -- Refs.: There is at least one essay just about the
categorical imperative, but there are scattered references wherever Grice
considers the mood markers, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
IN-PLICATVM. Grice: “It is obvious that
the Romans used this creatively, ‘plico in,’ ‘in-plico.’ The assimilation of
the ‘n’ into ‘m’ before ‘p’ is only vugar!” -- IN-PLICATVRVM -- implicaturum: Grice, “Fortunately, philosophy’s
main verb, “to imply,” ‘implicare,’ is like amare, perfectly regular.. So we
have implicans, who is the utterer or his utterance, the implicaturum, which is
the utterance that implies in the future, and the impilicatum – By way of
nominalization, or what I call subjectification or category shift we do have
‘impliatura,’ qua noun – But surely ‘implicatura’ qua feminine noun should be
distinguished from the non-categorially shifted ‘implicatura’ as plural of
‘implicaturum.’ There is no category shift in thinking of an expression as a
vehicle of an ‘implicatum’. This vehicle is the implicaturum when seen as the
expression itself. The utterer is the implicans. And then there’s the
‘implicandtum.’ Similarly, in definition, we speak of definiens and definiendum
– definiturum – The definies is what defines. This applies strictly to the
‘definer’ – the human being. The definiturum if in plural applies to the
expression that defines, -- when in masculine, definiturus, it applies to the
definer. Similarly we may say that he who is implies is an IMPLIER, or an
IMPLICATURUS. We do speak of a professor as being ‘a great explicator.’ So we
shoud speak of myself as a great implicator. in his Oxford seminars. Grice: “I
distinguish between the ‘implicaturum’ and the ‘implicaturum.’” “The
‘implicaturum’ corresponds to Moore’s entailment.” “For the ‘pragmatic-type’ of
thing, one should use ‘implicaturum.’” “The –aturum’ form is what at Clifton I
learned as the future, and a ‘future’ twist it has, since it refers to the
future.” “ ‘Implicaturum esse’ is, strictly, the infinitivum futurum, made out
of the ‘esse’ plus the ‘indicaturum.’ We loved these things at Clifton!” a pragmatic relation different from, but
easily confused with, the semantic relation of entailment. This concept was
first identified, explained, and used by H. P. Grice (Studies in the Way of
Words, 1989). Grice identified two main types of implicaturum, conventional and
non-conventional (including conversational). An emisor is said to
conversationally implicate that p in uttering x, provided that, although p is
NOT logically implied by what the emisor explicitly communicates, the
assumption that the emisor is attempting cooperative communication warrants
inferring that the emisor is communicating that p. If Grice utters “There is a
garage around the corner” in response to Strawson’s saying, “I am out of gas,”
Grice conversationally implicates that the garage is open and has gas to sell.
Grice identifies several conversational maxims to which cooperative
conversationalists may be expected to conform, and which justify inferences
about what the emisor implicates. In the above example, the implicaturums are
due to the maxim of conversational relevance. Another important maxim is the
maxim of conversational fortitude (“Make
your contribution as informatively strong as is required”). Among implicatura
due to the Maxim of conversational fortitude is the scalar implicaturum,
wherein the utterance contains an element that is part of a quantitative scale.
Utterance of such a sentence conversationally implicates that the emisor does
not believe related propositions higher on the scale of conversational
fortitude or informativeness. E. g. an emisor who says, “Some of the zoo
animals escaped,” implies that he does not believe that that most of the zoo
animals escaped, or that every animal of the zoo animals escaped. Unlike a
conversational implicaturum, a conventional implicaturum is due solely to the
semantics of the expression. An emisor is said by Grice to conventionally imply
that p, if the semantics of the expression commits the emisor to p, even though
what the emisor explicitly communicates does not entail that p. Thus, uttering,
as the Tommies did during the Great War, “She was poor but she was honest” a
Tommy implicates, but does not explicitly convey, that there is a contrast
between her poverty and her honesty. Grice
fought with this. It’s a term of art, and he mainly wants to avoid,
fastidiously, equivocation. “I say fastidiously because at Oxford, few – Hare
is one of them – followed suit --. Most stuck with ‘implicatio.’ “So, if we stick with Roman, we have
‘implicatio.’ This gives English ‘implication,’ because the Anglo-Norman
nominative proceeded via the Roman accusative, i. e. ‘implicationem.’ The use
of –ure is also Anglo-Norman, for Roman ‘-ura.’ So we have ‘implicatura,’ and
in Anglo-Norman, ‘implicature.’ ‘Implicatio’ is a feminine noun, and so is
‘implicatura.’ ‘Implicatio’ is a ‘active voice’ noun; so is ‘implicatura.’ The
Roman allows for a correlative neuter to the past participle, ‘implicatum,’ or
‘implicitum’ (there are vowel alternation here). So, the two neuter correlative
active forms for the two neuter passive perfect forms, ‘implicatum’ and
‘implicitum’ are ‘implicaturum’ and ‘impliciturum.’ Kneale has expanded on the
use of ‘implicans.’ If ‘implicans’ is the active PRESENT participle for
‘implicare,’ ‘implicaturum’ is the active FUTURE participle. There is no need
to specify the vehicle, as per Kneale, ‘propositio implicans,’ ‘propositio
implicata’ – Since ‘implicatura’ is definitely constructed out of the
active-voice future participle, we should have in fact a trio, where the two
second items get two variants, each: the implicans, the implicaturum/impliciturum,
and the implicatum/implicitum. Note that in the present participle, the vowel
alternation does not apply: there’s ‘implicans’ (masculine, feminine, and
neuter) only, which then yields, in the neuter forms, the future, ‘implicaturum’/’impliciturum,’
and the perfect, ‘implicatum’/’implicitum.’ The same for ‘explicare’:
explicatio, explicatura, -- explicans, yielding explicaturum/expliciturm,
explicatum/explciitum. Note that when I speak of what is seen, ‘see’ being
diaphanous, I refer to ‘visum,’ what is seen. – There is no need, and in fact
it is best not to, spceficy the vehicle. The Romans used the neuter, singular,
for each case --.” “If I were serious
about ‘implicature’ being feminine, I would speak of the ‘implicata’ as a singular
form, but I do not. I use ‘implicatum,’ what is implied – and use ‘implicata’
as plural neuter. Since an implicatum is usually indeterminate, it’s best to
refer to the plural, ‘implicata’ – Ditto for the ‘implicaturum,’ which becomes,
in the plural, ‘implicatura.’ – the vehicles are various in that stress,
emphasis, context, all change the vehicle, somehow --. Implicatio then is like
‘conceptio,’ it is an abstract form (strictly feminine) that has a
process-producti ambiguity that the neuter family: implicans,
implicaturum/impliciturm, implicatum/implicitum avoids. Note that while –ure
form in Anglo-Norman does not derive from the accusative, as ‘implication,’
does hence no accusative nasal ‘n’ (of ‘implicatioN,’ but not ‘implicatio’) in
‘implicature.’ The fact that the Anglo-Normans confused it all by turning this
into ‘employ,’ and ‘imply’ should not deter the Oxonian for his delightful
coinages!” Active Nominal Forms Infinitive:
implicā́re Present participle: implicāns; implicántis Future participle:
implicītúrus; implicātúrus Gerund: implicándum Gerundive: implicándus
Passive Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re Perfect participle: implicī́tum;
implicā́tum. implicitura (Latin Dictionary)
lemma part voice mood tense gender number case implicare verb active
participle future feminine singularnominative ablative vocative lemma part
voice mood tense gender number case implicare verb active participle future
neuter plural nominative accusative vocative INFLECTION Temporal inflection
present – masculine implicans future – masculine impliciturus / implicaturus
present – feminine implicans future – feminine implicitura / implicatura
present – neuter implicans future – neuter impliciturum / implicaturum. De
camptgii , vel eampacis dicemus inlra in vita Galheni apud TtebeUtum Pollionem,
ratdeiorum cajcci ISc imperatotum ita vocabantur , non "gamba,"
vel "campa," qua pro crure pofteriores wfuipatunt, quod crure
tenus calcea xeniui: id k corrigiarum flexuris, & implicaturis , quibus
circumligabantur. lologiae et Mercurii di Marziano Capella
(I 68), e avanza una nuova ipotesi di ... naculis implicaturis in retia sua
praecipites implagabuntur, syllogismis tuae pro- ... miliae suae longo ordine
ac multis stemmatum inligata flexuris in
parte prima. It may be argued that when Grice compares ‘impicature’ to “the
‘implying,’ that’s a feminine form, cognate with German/Dutch, -ung. Cf. Grice,
“The conception of value” – The conceiving of value,” the concept of value, the
conceptus of value, the conceptum of value. Active
Nominal Forms Present participle: cōncipiēns; cōncipiéntis Future participle:
cōnceptúrus Passive Nominal Forms Perfect participle: cōnceptum. Since Grice
plays with this in “Conception of value,” let’s compare. “Grice: “It is worth
comparing ‘to conceive’ with ‘to employ’.” Active present participle: implicans
– concipiens, concipientis --. Active future participle:
implicaturum/impliciturm, concepturus --. Passive perfect participle:
implicatum/implicitum – conceptum. Hardie would ask, “what do you mean ‘of’?” –
The implication of implication. The conception of value. In an objective
(passive) interpretation: it’s the conceptum of ‘value’. In a subjective
(active) interpretion, it’s the ‘conceiving’ of ‘value.’ Cfr. “the love of
god,” “the fear of the enemy.” “The implication of implication.” For Grice,
it’s the SENDER who implicates, a rational agent – although he may allow for an
expression to ‘imply’ – via connotation --, and provided the sender does, or
would occasionally do. In terms of the subjective/active, and objective/passive
distinction, we would have, ‘implication,’ as in Strawson’s implication,
meaning Strawson’s ‘implying’ (originally a feminine noun), i. e. Strawson’s
‘implicatio’ and Strawson’s ‘implicatura’, and Strawson’s ‘implicature,’ and
Strawson’s ‘implicaturum’/’impliciturm.’ In terms of the passive/objective
realm, what is implied by Strawson – the implicatum, and the implicitum. There
passive interpretation allows for only one form (with two vowel alternates):
implicatum and implicitum. The active forms can be present: ‘implicans’ and
‘implicaturum’. If it’s Strawson the ‘implier’ – implicans is ‘masculine.’ If
it’s Strawson the one about to imply, it’s “Strawson implicaturus” --. By use
of the genitive – “Ciceronis” we would have, “implicatura Ciceronis” – Cicero’s
implicature --, Cicero the implier, Cicero implicans --. Surely Cicero did
something to imply. This ‘something’ is best conceived in the neuter,
‘implicans,’ as applied, say, to sententia, or propositio – ‘propositio implicans
– ‘sententia implicans’ – ‘implicatura’ would refer to the act of implying – as
the conceiving of value --. Since ‘implicatura’ is formed out of the future
participle, its corresponding form in the neuter would be ‘implicaturum.’ By
his handwave (implicaturum/implicitum – qua vehicle of Cicero’s implicature –
or implicatura – his act of implying), Cicero (implicans) implies (implicat)
this or that ‘implicatum’ or ‘implicitum.’ Or, Grice’s implication.
Grice makes an important distinction which he thinks Austin doesn’t make
because what a philosopher EXPLICITLY conveys and what he IMPLICITLY conveys. It
was only a few years Grice was interacting philosophically with Austin and was
reading some material by Witters, when Grice comes with this criticism and
complaint. Austin ignores “all too frequently” a distinction that Witters
apparently dnies. This is a distinction between what an emissor communicates
(e. g. that p), which can be either explicitly (that p1) or implicitly (that
p2) and what, metabolically, and derivatively, the emissum ‘communictates’
(explicitly or implicitly). At the Oxford Philosophical Society, he is
considering Moore’s ‘entailment.’ This is not a vernacular expression, but a
borrowing from a Romance language. But basically, Moore’s idea is that ‘p’ may
be said to ‘entail’ q iff at least two conditions follow. Surely ‘entail’ has
only one sense. In this metabolically usage where it is a ‘p’ that ‘entails’
the conditions are that there is a property and that there is a limitation. Now
suppose Grice is discussing with Austin or reading Witters. Grice wants to
distinguish various things: what the emissor communicates (explicitly or
implicitly) and the attending diaphanous but metabolical, what WHAT THE EMSSOR
COMMUNICATES (explicitly or implicitly) ENTAILS, AND the purely metabolical
what the emissum ‘entails’ (explicitly or implicitly). This is Grice’s wording:“If
we can elucidate the meaning of "A meantNN by x that p (on a particular
occasion)," this might reasonably be expected to help us with the
explication of "entails.”The second important occasion is in the interlude
or excursus of his Aristotelian Society talk. How does he introduce the topic
of ‘implication’? At that time there was a lot being written about ‘contextual’
or ‘pragmatic’ implication – even within Grice’s circle – as in D. K. Grant’s
essay on pragmatic implication for Philosophy, and even earlier Nowell-Smith’s
on ‘contextual implication’ in “Ethics,” and even earlier, and this is perhaps
Grice’s main trigger, P. F. Strawson’s criticism of Whitehead and Russell, with
Strawson having that, by uttering ‘The king of France is not bald,’ the emissor
IMPLIES that there is a king of France (Strawson later changes the idiom from
‘imply,’ and the attending ‘implication, to ‘presuppose,’ but he keeps ‘imply’
in all the reprints of his earlier essays). In “Causal Theory,” Grice surely cannot just
‘break’ the narrative and start with ‘implication’ in an excursus. So the first
stage is to explore the use of ‘implication’ or related concepts in the first
part of “Causal Theory” LEADING to the excursus for which need he felt. The
first use appears in section 2. The use
is the noun, ‘implication.’ And Grice is reporting the view of an objector, so
does not care to be to careful himself.“the OBJECTION MIGHT run as follows.” “…
When someone makes a remark such as “The pillar box seems red” A CERTAIN
IMPLICATION IS CARRIED.” He goes on “This implication is “DISJUNCTIVE IN FORM,”
which should not concerns us here. Since we are considering the status of the
implication, as seen by the objector as reported by Grice. He does not give a
source, so we may assume G. A. Paul reading Witters, and trying to indoctrinate
a few Oxonians into Wittgensteinianism (Grice notes that besides the playgroup
there was Ryle’s group at Oxford and a THIRD, “perhaps more disciplined” group,
that tended towards Witters.Grice goes on:“It IS implied that…” p. Again, he
expands it, and obviously shows that he doesn’t care to be careful. And he is
being ironic, because the implication is pretty lengthy! Yet he says,
typically:“This may not be an absolutely EXACT or complete characterisation of
the implication, but it is, perhaps, good ENOUGH to be going with!” Grice goes
on to have his objector a Strawsonian, i. e. as REFUSING TO ASSIGN A
TRUTH-VALUE to the utterance, while Grice would have that it is ‘uninterestingly
true. In view of this it may to explore the affirmative and negative versions.
Because the truth-values may change:In Grice’s view: “The pillar box seems red
to me” IS “UNINTERESTINGLY TRUE,” in spite of the implication.As for “It is not
the case that the pillar box seems red,” this is more of a trick. In
“Negation,” Grice has a similar example. “That pillar box is red; therefore, it
is not blue.”He is concerned with “The pillar box is not blue,” or “It is not
the case that the pillar box is blue.”What about the truth-value now of the
utterance in connection with the implication attached to it?Surely, Grice would
like, unless accepting ‘illogical’ conversationalists (who want to make that
something is UNASSERTIBLE or MISLEADING by adding ‘not’), the utterance ‘It is
not the case that the pillar box seems red to me’ is FALSE in the scenario
where the emissor would be truthful in uttering ‘The pillar box seems red to
me.” Since Grice allows that the affirmative is ‘uninterestingly true,’ he is
committed to having ‘It is not the case that the pillar box seems red’ as
FALSE.For the Strawsonian Wittgensteinian, or truth-value gap theorist, the
situation is easier to characterise. Both ‘The pillar box seems red to me” and
its negation, “The pillar box does not seem red to me” lack a truth value, or
in Grice’s word, as applied to the affirmative, “far from being uninterestingly
true, is neither true nor false,” i. e. ‘neuter.’ It wold not be true but it
would not be false either – breakdown of bivalence. Grice’s case is a
complicated one because he distinguishes between the sub-perceptual “The pillar
box seems red” from the perceptual ‘vision’ statement, “Grice sees that the
pillar box is red.” So the truth of “The pillar box seems red” is a necessary
condition for the statement about ‘seeing.’ This is itself controversial. Some
philosophers have claimed that “Grice knows that p” does NOT entail “Grice
believes that p,” for example. But for the causal theory Grice is thinking of
an analysis of “Grice sees that the pillar box is red” in terms of three
conditions: First, the pillar box seems red to Grice. Second, the pillar box is
red. And third, it is the pillar box being red that causes it seeming red to
Grice. Grice goes to reformulate the idea that “The pillar box seems red” being
true. But now not “uninterestingly true,” but “true (under certain
conditions),” or as he puts it “(subject to certain qualifications) true.” He
may be having in mind a clown in a circus confronted with the blue pillar box
and making a joke about it. Those ‘certain qualifications’ would not apply to
the circus case. Grice goes on to change the adverb, it’s ‘boringly true,’ or
‘highly boringly true.’ He adds ‘suggestio falsi,’ which seems alright but
which would not please the Wittgensteinian who would also reject the ‘false.’
We need a ‘suggestio neutri.’ In this second section, he gives the theoretical
explanation. The “implication” arises “in virtue of a GENERAL FEATURE OR
PRINCIPLE” of conversation, or pertaining to a system put in ‘communication,’
or a general feature or principle governing an emissor communicating that p. Note
that ‘feature’ and ‘principle’ are appropriately ‘vague.’ “Feature” can be
descriptive. “Principle” is Aristotelian. Boethius’s translation for
Aristotle’s ‘arche.’ It can be descriptive. The first use of ‘principle’ in a
‘moral’ or ‘practical’ context seems to post-date its use in, say, geometry –
Euclid’s axioms as ‘principia mathematica,’ or Newton’s “Principia.” Grice may
be having in mind Moore’s ‘paradox’ (true, surely) when Grice adds ‘it is
raining.’Grice’s careful wording is worth exploring. “The mistake
[incorrectness, falsehood] of supposing the implication to constitute a
"part of the meaning [sense]” of "The Alpha seems Beta" is
somewhat similar to, though MORE INSIDUOUS …”[moral implication here: 1540s, from Middle French insidieux "insidious"
(15c.) or directly from Latin insidiosus "deceitful, cunning, artful,
treacherous," from insidiae (plural) "plot, snare, ambush,"
from insidere "sit
on, occupy," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in")
+ sedere "to
sit," from PIE root *sed- (1) "to
sit." Figurative, usually with a suggestion of lying in wait and the intent
to entrap. Related: Insidiously; insidiousness]“than,
the mistake which one IF one supposes that the SO-CALLED [‘pragmatic’ or
‘contextual – implicaturum, “as I would not,” and indeed he does not – he
prefers “expresses” here, not the weak ‘imply’] “implication” that one believes
it to be raining is "a part of the meaning [or sense]" of the
expression [or emissum] "It is raining.”Grice allows that no philosopher
may have made this mistake. He will later reject the view that one
conversationally implicates that one believes that it is raining by uttering
‘It is raining.’ But again he does not give sources. In these case, while
without the paraphernalia about the ‘a part of the ‘sense’” bit, can be
ascribed at Oxford to Nowell-Smith and Grant (but not, we hope to Strawson).
Nowell-Smith is clear that it is a contextual implication, but one would not
think he would make the mistake of bringing in ‘sense’ into the bargain. Grice
goes on:“The short and literally inaccurate reply to such a supposition [mistake]
might be that the so-called “implication” attaches because the expression (or
emissum) is a PROPOSITIONAL one [expressable by a ‘that so-and-so’ clause] not
because it is the particular propositional expression which it happens to be.”By
‘long,’ Grice implicates: “And it is part of the function of the informative
mode that you utter an utterance in the informative mode if you express your
belief in the content of the propositonal expression.”Grice goes on to analyse
‘implication’ in terms of ‘petitio principii.’ This is very interesting and
requires exploration. Grice claims that his success the implicaturum in the
field of the philosophy of perception led his efforts against Strawson on the
syncategoremata.But here we see Grice dealing what will be his success.One
might, for example, suggest that it is open to the champion of sense_data to
lay down that the sense-datum sentence " I have a pink sense-datum "
should express truth if and only if the facts are as they would have to be for
it to be true, if it were in order, to say .. Something looks pink to me
", even though it may not actually be in ordei to say this (because the
D-or-D condition is unfulfilled). But this attempt to by-pass the objector's
position would be met by the reply that it begs the question; for it assumes
that there is some way of specifying the facts in isolation from the
implication standardly carried by such a specification; and this is precisely
what the objector is denying.Rephrasing that:“One might, for example, suggest
that it is open to the champion of sense_data to lay down that the sense-datum
sentence "The pillar box seems red” is TRUE if and only if the facts are
as the facts WOULD HAVE to be for “The pillar box seems red” to be true, IF (or
provided that) it were IN ORDER [i. e. conversationally appropriate], to utter
or ‘state’ or explicitly convey that the pillar box seems red, even though it
may NOT actually be in order [conversationally appropriate] to explicitly
convey that the pillar box seems red (because the condition specified in the
implication is unfulfilled).”“But this attempt to by-pass the objector's
position would be met by a charge of ‘petitio principia,’ i. e. the reply that
it begs the question.”“Such a manoeuvre
is invalid in that it assumes that there IS some way of providing a
SPECIFICATION of the facts of the matter in isolation from, or without recourse
to, the implication that is standardly carried by such a specification.”“This
is precisely what the objector is denying, i. e. the objector believes it is
NOT the case that there is a way of giving a specification of the scenario
without bringing in the implication.”Grice refers to the above as one of the
“frustrations,” implicating that the above, the ‘petitio principia,’ is just
one of the trials Grice underwent before coming with the explanation in terms
of the general feature of communication, or as he will late express, in terms
of ‘what the hell’ the ‘communication-function’ of “The pillar seems red to me”
might be when the implicaturum is not meant – and you have to go on and cancel
it (“That pillar box seems red; mind, I’m not suggesting that it’s not – I’m
practicing my sub-perceptual proficiency.”).Grice goes on to note the
generality he saw in the idea of the ‘implication.’ Even if “The pillar box seems
red” was his FIRST attack, the reason he was willing to do the attacking was
that the neo-Wittgensteinian was saying things that went against THE TENOR OF
THE THINGS GRICE would say with regard to other ‘linguistic philosophical’
cases OTHER than in the philosophy of perception, notably his explorations were
against Malcolm reading of Moore, about Moore ‘misusing’ “know.”Grice:“I was
inclined to rule against my objector, partly because his opponent's position
was more in line with the kind of thing I was inclined to say about other
linguistic phenomena which are in some degree comparable.”Rephrase:“My natural
inclination was to oppose the objector.”“And that was because his opponent's
position is more “in line” with the kind of thing Grice is inclined to say – or
thesis he is willing to put forward-- about OTHER phenomena involving this or
that ‘communication-function’ of this or that philosophical adage, which are in
some degree comparable to “The pillar box seems red.””So just before the
‘excursus,’ or ‘discursus,’ as he has it – which is then not numbered – but
subtitlted (‘Implication’), he embark on a discursus about “certain ASPECTS of
the concept OR CONCEPTS of implication.”He interestingly adds: “using some more
or less well-worn examples.” This is not just a reference to Strawson, Grant,
Moore, Hungerland and Nowell-Smith, but to the scholastics and the idea of the
‘suppositio’ as an ‘implicatio,’: “Tu non cessas edere ferrum.” Grice says he
will consider only four aspects or FOUR IDEAS (used each as a ‘catalyst’) in
particular illustrations.“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.”“Smith’s girlfriend
is poor, but honest.”“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful”“Smith’s wife is in the
kitchen or in the bathroom.”Each is a case, as Grice puts it, “in which in
ordinary parlance, or at least in Oxonian philosophical parlance, something
might be said to be ‘implied’ (hopefully by the emissor) -- as distinct from
being ‘stated,’ or ‘explicitly put.’One first illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.” IMPLICITLY CONVEYED, but cancellable:
“Smith has been beating his wife.”CANCELLATION: “Smith has not ceased beating
his wife; he never started.”APPLY THREE OTHER IDEAS.A second
illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“Smith’s girlfriend is poor, but honest.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “There is some contrast between Smith’s girlfriend’s honesty and her
poverty; and possibly between Smith and the utterer.”CANCELLATION: “I’m sorry,
I cannot cancel that.”TRY OTHER THREE IDEAS.A third illustrationEXPLICITLY
CONVEYED “Smith’s handwriting is beautiful” – “Or “If only his outbursts were
more angelic.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “He possibly cannot read Hegel in German.”CANCELLATION:
“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful; on top, he reads Hegel in German.”TRY
THREEOTHER IDEASA fourth illustration:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “Smith’s wife is in
the kitchen or in the bathroom.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “It is not the case that I
have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D1, and it is not the case
that I have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D2; therefore, I am
introducting the disjunction EITHER than by the way favoured by Gentzen.”
(Grice actually focuses on the specific ‘doxastic’ condition: emissor believes
…CANCELLATION: “I know perfectly well where she is, but I want you to find out
for yourself.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.Within the discursus he gives SIX (a
sextet) other examples, of the philosophical type, because he is implicating
the above are NOT of the really of philosophical type, hence his reference to
‘ordinary parlance.’ He points out that he has no doubt there are other
candidates besides his sextet.FIRST IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You
cannot see a knife as a knife, though you may see what is not a knife as a
knife.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the
horse as a horse, because my gestalt is mine.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEASSECOND IN
THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When Moore said he knew that the objects before
him were human hands, he was guilty of misusing the word "know".”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.THIRD IN THE
SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “For an occurrence to be properly said to have a
‘cause,’ the occurrence must be something abnormal or unusual.”IMPLICILTY
CONVEYED: “Refrain from using ‘cause’ when the thing is normal and usual.”CANCELLATION:
“If I see that the pillar box is red iff the pillar box seems red, the pillar
box is red, and the pillar box being red causes the pillar box seeming red, the
cause of the pillar box seeming red is that the pillar box is red.”TRY OTHER
THREE IDEAS.FOURTH IN THE SEXTET: EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “For an action to be properly described as one for which the agent is
responsible, it must be the sort of action for which people are condemned.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “Refrain ascribing ‘responsibility’ to Timmy having cleaned up his
bedroom.”CANCELLATION: “Timmy is very responsible. He engages in an action for
which people are not condemned.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.FIFTH IN THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “What is actual is not also possible.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “There is
a realm of possibilities which does not overlap with the realm of
actualities.”CANCELLATION: “If p is actual iff p obtains in world w1, and p is
possible iff p obtains in any world wn which includes w1, p is possible.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS.SIXTH IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “What is known by me
to be the case is not also believed by me to be the case.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“To know is magical!”CANCELLATION: “If I know that p iff I believe that p, p,
and p causes my believing that p, then what is known by me to be the case is
also believed by me to be the case.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.CASE IN QUESTION:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “The pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it
is.”CANCELLATION: “The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS. THAT LISTING became commonplace for Grice. In
ProlegomenaGROUP A: EXAMPLE I: RYLE on ‘voluntarily’ and “involuntarily” in
“The Concept of Mind.” RYLE WAS LISTENING! BUT GRICE WAS without reach! Grice
would nothavecriticised Ryle at a shorter distance.EXAMPLE II: MALCOLM IN
“Defending common sense” in the Philosophical Review, on Moore’s misuse of
‘know’ – also in Causal, above, as second in the sextet.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When
Moore said he knew that the objects before him were human hands, he was guilty
of misusing the word "know".REPHRASE IN “PROLEGOMENA.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”EXAMPLE III: BENJAMIN ON BROAD ON THE
“SENSE” OF “REMEMBERING”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED;IMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONEXAMPLES,
GROUP A, CLASS IV: philosophy of perception FIRST EXAMPLE: Witters on ‘seeing
as’ in Philosophical InvestigationsEXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY
CONVEYEDCANCELLATION.Previously used in Causal as first in the sextet: FIRST IN
THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You cannot see a knife as a knife, though you
may see what is not a knife as a knife.”Rephrased in Prolegomena. IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the horse as a horse,
because my gestalt is mine.”GROUP A – CLASS IV – PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTIONEXAMPLE
II – “The pillar box seems red to me.”Used in“Causal”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “The
pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it is.”CANCELLATION:
“The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”GROUP A – CLASS V –
PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION – Here unlike Class IV, he uses (a), etc.EXAMPLE A: WITTERS
AND OTHERS on ‘trying’ EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYED:CANCELLATIONGROUP
A – CLASS V – “ACTION,” not ‘philosophy of action’ – cf. ‘ordinary
parlance.’EXAMPLE B: Hart on ‘carefully.’EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATION
GROUP A – CLASS V – ACTIONEXAMPLE C: Austin in “A plea for excuses” on
‘voluntarily’ and ‘involuntarily’ – a refinement on Ryle above – using variable
“Mly” – Grice would not have criticised Austin in the play group. He rather
took it against his tutee, Strawson.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED IMPLICITLY
CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONGROUP B: syncategorema – not lettered butFIRST EXAMPLE:
“AND” (not ‘not’)SECOND EXAMPLE: “OR”THIRD EXAMPLE: “IF” – particularly
relevant under ‘implication.’ STRAWSON, Introduction to logical theory.GRICE’S
PHRASING: “if p, q” ENTAILS ‘p horseshoe q.’ The reverse does not hold: it is
not the case that ‘p horseshoe q’ ENTAILS ‘if p, q’. Odd way of putting it, but
it was all from Strawson. It may be argued that ‘entail’ belongs in a system,
and ‘p horseshoe q’ and ‘if p, q’ are DISPARATE. Grice quotes verbatim from
Strawson:a ‘primary or standard’ use of “if … then …,” or “if,” of which the
main characteristics were: that for each hypothetical statement made by this
use of “if,” there could be made just one statement which would be the
antecedent of the hypothetical and just onestatement which would be its
consequent; that the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if
the antecedent statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be
a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the
making of the hypothetical statement carries the implicationeither of
uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent.Grice rephrases that by stating that for Grice “a primary or
standard use of ‘if, then’” is characterised as follows:“for each hypothetical
statement made by this use of “if,” there could be made just one statement
which would be the antecedent of the hypothetical and just one statement which
would be its consequent; that the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true,
reasonable) if the antecedent statement, if made or accepted, would, in the
circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent
statement; and that the making of the hypothetical statement carries the
implication either of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent.”Grice rephrases the characterisation as from
“each” and eliding a middle part, but Grice does not care to add the fastidious
“[…],” or quote, unquote.“each hypothetical ‘statement’ made by this use of
“if” is acceptable (TRUE, reasonable) if the antecedent ‘statement,’ IF made or
accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting
the consequent ‘statement;’ and that the making of thehypothetical statement
carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the
fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.
“A hypothetical, or conditional ‘statement’ or composite proposition such
as “If it is day, I talk”is acceptable (or TRUE, or ‘reasonable’) if (but not
only if), first, the antecedent ‘statement,’ ‘It is day,’ IF made on its own, or
accepted on its own, i. e. simpliciter, would, in the circumstances, be a good
ground or ‘reason’ for accepting the consequent ‘statement,’ to wit: “I talk;”
and, second, that the making of the conditional proposition or hypothetical ‘statement’
carries the implication, or rather the emissor of the emissum IMPLIES, either it
is not the case that the emissor is CERTAIN about or that it is day and CERTAIN
about or that he talks, or BELIEVES that it is day and BELIEVES that he
talks.”More or less Grice’s denial or doubt. Or rather ‘doubt’ (Strawson’s
‘uncertainty about’) or denial (‘disbelief in’). But it will do at this point
to explore the argument by Strawson to which Grice is responding. First two
comments. Strawson has occasion to respond to Grice’s response in more than one
opportunity. But Grice never took up the issue again in a detailed fashion –
after dedicating a full lecture to it. One occasion was Strawson’s review of
the reprint of Grice in 1989. Another is in the BA memorial. The crucial one is
repr. by Strawson (in a rather otiose way) in his compilation, straight from
PGRICE. This is an essay which Strawson composed soon after the delivery by
Grice of the lecture without consulting. Once Stawson is aware of Grice’s
terminology, he is ready to frame his view in Grice’s terms: for Strawson,
there IS an implicaturum, but it is a conventional one. His analogy is with the
‘asserted’ “therefore” or “so.” Since this for Grice was at least the second
exemplar of his manoeuvre, it will do to revise the argument from which Grice
extracts the passage in “Prolegomena.” In the body of the full lecture IV,
Grice does not care to mention Strawson at all; in fact, he makes rather hasty
commentaries generalising on both parties of the debate: the formalists, who
are now ‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,” i. e. not philosophers
like Grice and Strawson; and the informalists or ‘traditionalists’ like
Strawson who feel offended by the interlopers to the tranquil Elysium of
philosophy. Grice confesses a sympathy for the latter, of course. So here is
straight from the tranquil Elysium of philosophy. For Strawson, the relations
between “if” and “⊃” have already, but only in part, been
discussed (Ch. 2, S. 7).” So one may need to review those passages. But now he
has a special section that finishes up the discussion which has been so far
only partial. So Strawson resumes the points of the previous partial discussion
and comes up with the ‘traditionalist’ tenet. The sign “⊃” is called the
material implication sign. Only by Whitehead and Russell, that is,
‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,’ in Grice’s wording. Whitehead
and Russell think that ‘material’ is a nice opposite to ‘formal,’ and ‘formal
implication’ is something pretty complex that only they know to which it
refers! Strawson goes on to explain, and this is a reminder of his
“Introduction” to his “Philosophical Logic” where he reprints Grice’s Meaning
(for some reason). There Strawson has a footnote quoting from Quine’s “Methods
of Logic,” where the phrasing is indeed about the rough phrase, ‘the meaning of
‘if’’ – cf. Grice’s laughter at philosophers talking of ‘the sense of ‘or’’ –
“Why, one must should as well talk of the ‘sense’ of ‘to,’ or ‘of’!’ – Grice’s implicaturum
is to O. P. Wood, whose claim to fame is for having turned Oxford into the
place where ‘the sense of ‘or’’ was the key issue with which philosophers were
engaged. Strawson goes on to say that
its meaning is given by the ‘rule’ that any statement of the form ‘p⊃q’
is FALSE in the case in which the first of its constituent statements is true
and the second false, and is true in every other case considered in the system;
i. e., the falsity of the first constituent statement or the truth of the
second are, equally, sufficient conditions of the truth of a statement of
material implication. The combination of truth in the first with falsity in the
second is the single, NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT, condition of its falsity. The
standard or primary -- the importance of this qualifying phrase, ‘primary,’ can
scarcely be overemphasized – Grice omits this bracket when he expolates the
quote. The bracket continues. The place where Strawson opens the bracket is a
curious one: it is obvious he is talking about the primary use of ‘if’. So here
he continues the bracket with the observation that there are uses of “if” which do not answer to the description given
here, or to any other descriptions given in this [essay] -- use of “if”
sentence, on the other hand [these are Strawson’s two hands], are seen to be in
circumstances where, not knowing whether some statement which could be made by
the use of a sentence corresponding in a certain way to the sub-ordinated
clause of the utterance is true or not, or believing it to be false, the emissor
nevertheless considers that a step in reasoning from THAT statement to a
statement related in a similar way to the main clause would be a sound or
reasonable step [a reasonable reasoning, that is]; this statement related to
the main clause also being one of whose truth the emissor is in doubt, or which
the emissor believes to be false. Even in such circumstances as these a
philosopher may sometimes hesitate to apply ‘true’ to a conditional or
hypothetical statement, i.e., a statement which could be made by the use of “if
”(Philo’s ‘ei,’ Cicero’s ‘si’) in its
standard significance, preferring to call a conditional statement reasonable or
well-founded. But if the philosopher does apply ‘true’ to an ‘if’ utterance at
all, it will be in such circumstances as these. Now one of the sufficient
conditions of the truth of a ‘statement’ or formula of material implication may
very well be fulfilled without the conditions for the truth, or reasonableness,
of the corresponding hypothetical or conditional statement being fulfilled. A
statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q’ (where the horseshoe is meant to
represent an inverted ‘c’ for ‘contentum’ or ‘consequutum’ -- does not entail
the corresponding statement of the ‘form’ “if p, q.” But if the emissor is
prepared to accept the hypothetical statement, he must in consistency be
prepared to deny the conjunction of the statement corresponding to the
sub-ordinated clause of the sentence used to make the hypothetical statement
with the negation of the statement corresponding to its main or super-ordinated
clause. A statement of the ‘form’ “if p, q” does entail the corresponding
statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q.’ The force of “corresponding” may need
some elucidation. Consider the following very ‘ordinary’ or ‘natural’ specimens
of a hypothetical sentence. Strawson starts with a totally unordinary
subjective counterfactual ‘if,’ an abyss with Philo, “If it’s day, I talk.”
Strawson surely involves The Hun. ‘If the Germans had invaded England in 1940,
they, viz. the Germans, would have won the war.’ Because for the Germans,
invading England MEANT winning the war. They never cared much for Wales or
Scotland, never mind Northern Ireland. Possibly ‘invaded London’ would suffice.
Strawson’s second instantiation again is the odd subjective counter-factual
‘if,’ an abyss or chasm from Philo, ‘If it’s day, I talk.’ “If Smith were in
charge, half the staff would have been dismissed.’ Strawson is thinking Noel
Coward, who used to make fun of the music-hall artist Wade. “If you WERE the
only girl in the world, and I WAS the only boy…’. The use of ‘were’ is Oxonian.
A Cockney is forbidden to use it, using ‘was’ instead. The rationale is
Philonian. ‘was’ is indicative. “If
Smith were in charge, half the staff would have been dismissed.’ Strawson’s
third instantiation is, at last, more or less Philonian, a plain indicative
‘weather’ protasis, etc. “If it rains, the match will be cancelled.” The only
reservation Philo would have is ‘will’. Matches do not have ‘will,’ and the sea
battle may never take place – the world may be destroyed by then. “If it rains,
the match will be cancelled.” Or “If it rains, the match is cancelled – but
there is a ‘rain date.’” The sentence which could be used to make a statement corresponding
in the required ‘sense’ to the sub-ordinate clause can be ascertained by
considering what it is that the emissor of each hypothetical sentence must (in
general) be assumed either to be in doubt about or to believe to be not the
case. Thus, the corresponding sentences. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940.’
Or ‘The Germans invade England’ – historical present -- ‘The Germans won the
war.’ Or ‘The Germans win the war’ – historical present. ‘Smith is in charge.’
‘Half the staff has been dismissed.’ Or ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘It will
rain.’ Or ‘It rains.’‘The match will be cancelled.’ Or ‘The match is
cancelled.’ A sentence could be used to make a statement of material
implication corresponding to the hypothetical statement made by the sentence is framed, in each case, from these
pairs of sentences as follows. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940 ⊃
they won the war.’ Or in the historical present,’The Germans invade London ⊃
The Germans win the war. ‘ ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff has
been, dismissed.’ Or in the present tense, ‘Smith is in charge ⊃
half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘ It will rain ⊃ the match will be
cancelled.’ Or in the present ‘It rains ⊃ the match is
cancelled.’ The very fact that a few
verbal modifications are necessary to please the Oxonian ear, in order to
obtain from the clauses of the hypothetical sentence the clauses of the
corresponding material implication sentence is itself a symptom of the radical
difference between a hypothetical statement and a truth-functional statement.
Some detailed differences are also evident from these instantiations. The
falsity of a statement made by the use of ‘The Germans invade London in 1940’
or ‘Smith is in charge’ is a sufficient condition of the truth of the
corresponding statements made by the use of the ⊃-utterances. But
not, of course, of the corresponding statement made by the use of the ‘if’
utterance. Otherwise, there would normally be no point in using an ‘if’ sentence
at all.An ‘if’ sentence would normally carry – but not necessarily: one may use
the pluperfect or the imperfect subjunctive when one is simply working out the
consequences of an hypothesis which one may be prepared eventually to accept --
in the tense or mode of the verb, an implication (or implicaturum) of the
emissor’s belief in the FALSITY of the statements corresponding to the clauses
of the hypothetical.That it is not the case that it rains is sufficient to
verify (or truth-functionally confirm) a statement made by the use of “⊃,”
but not a statement made by the use of ‘if.’ That it is not the case that it
rains is also sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally confirm) a statement
made by the use of ‘It will rain ⊃ the match will not
be cancelled.’ Or ‘It rains ⊃ the match is
cancelled.’ The formulae ‘p ⊃ q’ and ‘p ⊃
~ q' are consistent with one another.The joint assertion of corresponding
statements of these forms is equivalent to the assertion of the corresponding
statement of the form ‘~ p.’ But, and here is one of Philo’s ‘paradoxes’: “If
it rains, the match will be cancelled” (or ‘If it rains, the match is
cancelled’) seems (or sounds) inconsistent with “If it rains, the match will
not be cancelled,’ or ‘If it rains, it is not the case that the match is
cancelled.’But here we add ‘not,’ so Philo explains the paradox away by noting
that his account is meant for ‘pure’ uses of “ei,” or “si.”Their joint assertion
in the same context sounds self-contradictory. But cf. Philo, who wisely said
of ‘If it is day, it is
night’ “is true only at night.” (Diog. Laert. Repr. in Long, The Hellenistic
Philosophers). Suppose we call the statement corresponding to the
sub-ordinated clause of a sentence used to make a hypothetical statement the
antecedent of the hypothetical statement; and the statement corresponding to
the super-ordinated clause, its consequent. It is sometimes fancied that, whereas
the futility of identifying a conditional ‘if’ statement with material
implication is obvious in those cases where the implication of the falsity of
the antecedent is normally carried by the mode or tense of the verb – as in “If
the Germans invade London in 1940, they, viz. the Germans, win the war’ and ‘If
Smith is in charge, half the staff is dismissed’ -- there is something to be
said for at least a PARTIAL identification in cases where no such implication
is involved, i.e., where the possibility of the truth of both antecedent and
consequent is left open – as in ‘If it rains, the match is cancelled.’ In cases
of the first kind (an ‘unfulfilled,’ counterfactual, or ‘subjunctive’
conditional) the intended addressee’s attention is directed, as Grice taught J.
L. Mackie, in terms of the principle of conversational helpfulness, ONLY TO THE
LAST TWO ROWS of the truth-tables for ‘ p ⊃ q,’ where the
antecedent has the truth-value, falsity. Th suggestion that ‘~p’ ‘entails’ ‘if
p, q’ is felt or to be or ‘sounds’ – if not to Philo’s or Grice’s ears -- obviously
wrong. But in cases of the second kind
one inspects also the first two ROWS. The possibility of the antecedent's being
fulfilled is left open. It is claimed that it is NOT the case that the
suggestion that ‘p ⊃ q’ ‘entails’ ‘if p, q’ is felt to be or
sound obviously wrong, to ANYBODY, not just the bodies of Grice and Philo. This
Strawson calls, to infuriate Grice, ‘an illusion,’ ‘engendered by a reality.’The
fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement does
not show that the man who made the hypothetical statement is right. It is not
the case that the man would be right, Strawson claims, if the consequent is
made true as a result of this or that factor unconnected with, or in spite of,
rather than ‘because’ of, the fulfilment of the antecedent. E. g. if Grice’s unmissable match is missed
because the Germans invade – and not because of the ‘weather.’ – but cf. “The
weather in the streets.” Strawson is prepared to say that the man (e. g.,
Grice, or Philo) who makes the hypothetical statement is right only if Strawson
is also prepared to say that the antecedent being true is, at least in part,
the ‘explanation’ of the consequent being true. The reality behind the illusion
Strawson naturally finds ‘complex,’ for surely there ain’t one! Strawson thinks
that this is due to two phenomena. First, Strawson claims, in many cases, the
fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent provides confirmation for the view
that the existence of states of affairs like those described by the antecedent
IS a good ‘reason’ for expecting (alla Hume, assuming the uniformity of nature,
etc.) a states of affair like that described by the consequent. Second,
Starwson claims, a man (e. g. Philo, or Grice) who (with a straight Grecian or
Griceian face) says, e. g. ‘If it rains, the match is cancelled’ makes a bit of
a prediction, assuming the ‘consequent’ to be referring to t2>t1 – but cf.
if he is reporting an event taking place at THE OTHER PLACE. The prediction
Strawson takes it to be ‘The match is cancelled.’And the man is making the
prediction ONLY under what Strawson aptly calls a “proviso,” or “caveat,” –
first used by Boethius to translate Aristotle -- “It rains.” Boethius’s
terminology later taken up by the lawyers in Genoa. mid-15c., from Medieval Latin proviso (quod) "provided
(that)," phrase at the beginning of clauses in legal documents (mid-14c.),
from Latin proviso "it
being provided," ablative neuter of provisus, past participle
of providere (see provide).
Related: Provisory.
And that the cancellation of the match because of the rain therefore leads us
to say, not only that the reasonableness of the prediction was confirmed, but
also that the prediction itself was confirmed. Because it is not the case that a statement of
the form ‘ p ⊃ q’ entails the corresponding statement of
the form ' if p, q ' (in its standard employment), Strawson thinks he can find
a divergence between this or that ‘rule’ for '⊃' and this or that
‘rule’ for '’if ,’ in its standard employment. Because ‘if p, q’ does entail ‘p
⊃ q,’ we shall also expect to find some
degree of parallelism between the rules. For whatever is entailed by ‘p ⊃
q’ is entailed by ‘if p, q,’ though not everything which entails ‘p ⊃
q’ does Strawson claims, entail ‘if p, q.’ Indeed, we find further parallels than those
which follow simply from the facts that ‘if p, q’ entails ‘p ⊃
q’ and that entailment is transitive. To
some laws for ‘⊃,’ Strawson finds no parallels for ‘if.’ Strawson
notes that for at least four laws for ‘⊃,’ we find that parallel
laws ‘hold’ good for ‘if. The first law is mentioned by Grice, modus ponendo
ponens, as elimination of ‘⊃.’ Strawson does
not consider the introduction of the horseshoe, where p
an q forms a collection of all active assumptions previously introduced which
could have been used in the deduction of ‘if p, q.’ When
inferring ‘if p, q’ one is allowed to discharge assumptions of the
form p. The fact that after deduction of ‘if p, q’ this
assumption is discharged (not active is pointed out by using [ ] in vertical
notation, and by deletion from the set of assumptions in horizontal notation.
The latter notation shows better the character of the rule; one deduction is
transformed into the other. It shows also that the rule for the
introduction of ‘if’ corresponds to an important metatheorem, the
Deduction Theorem, which has to be proved in axiomatic formalizations of logic.
But back to the elimination of ‘if’. Modus ponendo ponens. ‘‘((p ⊃
q).p) ⊃ q.’ For some reason, Strawson here mixes
horseshoes and ifs as if Boethius is alive! Grice calls these “half-natural,
half-artificial.’ Chomsky prefers ‘semi-native.’ ‘(If p, q, and p) ⊃q.’
Surely what Strawson wants is a purely ‘if’ one, such as ‘If, if p, q, and p,
q.’ Some conversational implicaturum! As
Grice notes: “Strawson thinks that one can converse using his converses, but we
hardly.’ The second law. Modus tollendo tollens. ‘((p⊃q).
~ q)) ⊃ (~ p).’ Again, Strawson uses a ‘mixed’
formula: (if p, q, and it is not the case that q) ⊃
it is not the case that p. Purely unartificial: If, if p, q, and it is not the
case that q, it is not the case that p. The third law, which Strawson finds
problematic, and involves an operator that Grice does not even consider. ‘(p ⊃
q) ≡ (~ q
⊃ ~ p). Mixed version, Strawson simplifies
‘iff’ to ‘if’ (in any case, as Pears notes, ‘if’ IMPLICATES ‘iff.’). (If p, q) ⊃
if it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. Unartificial: If, if
p, q, it is not the case that if q, it is not the case that p. The fourth law. ((p
⊃ q).(q ⊃ r)) ⊃
(p ⊃ r). Mixed: (if p, q, and if q, r) ⊃
(if p, r). Unartificial: ‘If, if p, q, and if q, r, if p, r.’ Try to say that
to Mrs. Grice! (Grice: “It’s VERY SURPRISING that Strawson think we can
converse in his lingo!”). Now Strawson displays this or that ‘reservation.’
Mainly it is an appeal to J. Austen and J. Austin. Strawson’s implicaturum is
that Philo, in Megara, has hardly a right to unquiet the tranquil Elysium. This
or that ‘reservation’ by Strawson takes TWO pages of his essay. Strawson claims
that the reservations are important. It is, e. g., often impossible to apply
entailment-rule (iii) directly without obtaining incorrect or absurd results. Some
modification of the structure of the clauses of the hypothetical is commonly
necessary. Alas, Whitehead and Russell give us little guide as to which
modifications are required. If we apply
rule (iii) to our specimen hypothetical sentences, without modifying at all the
tenses or moods of the individual clauses, we obtain expressions which Austin would
not call ‘ordinary language,’ or Austen, for that matter, if not Macaulay. If we preserve as nearly as possible the
tense-mode structure, in the simplest way consistent with grammatical requirements,
we obtain this or that sentence. TOLLENDO TOLLENS. ‘If it is not the case that
the Germans win the war, it is not the case that they, viz. the Germans, invade
England in 1940.’ ‘If it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed, it
is not the case that Smith is in charge.’ ‘If it is not the case that the match
is cancelled, it is not the case that it rains.’ But, Strawson claims, these
sentences, so far from SOUNDING or seeming logically equivalent to the
originals, have in each case a quite different ‘sense.’ It is possible, at
least in some cases, to frame, via tollendo tollens a target setence of more or
less the appropriate pattern for which one can imagine a use and which DOES
stand in the required relationship to the source sentence. ‘If it is not the
case that the Germans win the war, (trust) it is not the case that they, viz.
the Germans, invade England in 1940,’ with the attending imlicatum: “only
because they did not invade England in 1940.’ or even, should historical
evidence be scanty). ‘If it is not the case that the Germans win the war, it
SURELY is not the case that they, viz. the Germans, invade London in 1940.’ ‘If
it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed, it surely is not the case
that Smith is in charge.’ These changes reflect differences in the
circumstances in which one might use these, as opposed to the original,
sentences. The sentence beginning ‘If
Smith is in charge …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by a man who
antecedently knows that it is not the case that Smith is in charge. The
sentence beginning ‘If it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by
by a man who is, as Cook Wilson would put it, ‘working’ towards the ‘consequent’
conclusion that Smith is not in charge. To
say that the sentences are nevertheless truth-functionally equivalent seems to
point to the fact that, given the introduction rule for ‘if,’ the grounds for
accepting the original ‘if’-utterance AND the ‘tollendo tollens’ correlatum, would,
in two different scenarios, have been grounds for accepting the soundness or
validity of the passage or move from a premise ‘Smith is in charge’ to its
‘consequentia’ ‘consequutum,’ or ‘conclusion,’ ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ One
must remember that calling each formula (i)-(iv) a LAW or a THEOREM is the same
as saying that, e.g., in the case of (iii), ‘If p, q’ ‘ENTAILS’ ‘If it is not
the case that q, it is not the case that p.’ Similarly, Strawson thinks, for
some steps which would be invalid for ‘if,’ there are corresponding steps that
would be invalid for ‘⊃.’ He gives two example using a symbol
Grice does not consider, for ‘therefore,’ or ‘ergo,’ and lists a fallacy. First
example. ‘(p ⊃ q).q ∴ p.’
Second example of a fallacy:‘(p ⊃ q). ~p ∴ ~q.’ These are
invalid inference-patterns, and so are the correlative patterns with ‘if’: ‘If
p, q; and q ∴ p’ ‘If p, q; and it
is not the case that p ∴
it is not the case that q.
The formal analogy here may be described by saying that neither ‘p ⊃ q’ nor ‘if p, q’ is a simply convertible (“nor
hardly conversable” – Grice) formula. Strawson thinks, and we are getting
closer to Philo’s paradoxes, revisied, that there may be this or that laws which
holds for ‘p ⊃ q’ and not for ‘If p, q.’ As an example of a law which holds for ‘if’
but not for ‘⊃,’ one may give an analytic formula. ~[(if
p, q) . (if p, it is not the case that q)]’. The corresponding formula with the
horseshoe is not analytic. ‘~[(p ⊃ q) . (p ⊃
~q)]’ is not analytic, and is equivalent to the contingent formula ‘~ ~p.’ The
rules to the effect that this or that formula is analytic is referred to by
Johnson, in the other place, as the ‘paradox of implication.’ This Strawson
finds a Cantabrigian misnomer. If Whitehead’s and Russell’s ‘⊃’
is taken as identical either with Moore’s ‘entails’ or, more widely, with Aelfric’s‘if’ – as in his “Poem to the If,”
MSS Northumberland – “If” meant trouble in Anglo-Saxon -- in its standard use,
the rules that yield this or that so-called ‘paradox’ -- are not, for Strawson,
“just paradoxical.” With an attitude, he adds. “They are simply incorrect.”This
is slightly illogical.“That’s not paradoxical; that’s incorrect.”Cf. Grice,
“What is paradoxical is not also incorrect.” And cf. Grice: “Philo defines a
‘paradox’ as something that surprises _his father_.’ He is ‘using’ “father,”
metaphorically, to refer to his tutor. His father was unknown (to him). On the
other hand (vide Strawson’s Two Hands), with signs you can introduce alla
Peirce and Johnson by way of ostensive definition any way you wish! If ‘⊃’
is given the meaning it is given by what Grice calls the ‘truth-table
definition,’ or ‘stipulation’ in the system of truth functions, the rules and
the statements they represent, may be informally dubbed ‘paradoxical,’ in that
they don’t agree with the ‘man in the street,’ or ‘the man on High.’ The
so-called ‘paradox’ would be a simple and platitudinous consequence of the
meaning given to the symbol. Strawson had expanded on the paradoxes in an essay
he compiled while away from Oxford. On his return to Oxford, he submitted it to
“Mind,” under the editorship by G. Ryle, where it was published. The essay
concerns the ‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ in detail, and mentions Moore and C.
I. Lewis. He makes use of modal operators, nec. and poss. to render the
‘necessity’ behind ‘entail.’ He thinks the paradoxes of ‘entailment’ arise from
inattention to this modality. At the time, Grice and Strawson were pretty sure
that nobody then accepted, if indeed anyone ever did and did make, the
identification of the relation symbolised by the horseshoe, ⊃,
with the relation which Moore calls ‘entailment,’ p⊃q,
i. e. The mere truth-functional ‘if,’ as in ‘p ⊃ q,’ ‘~(pΛ~q)’ is
rejected as an analysis of the meta-linguistic ‘p entails q.’ Strawson thinks
that the identification is rejected because ‘p ⊃ q’ involves this
or that allegedly paradoxical implicaturum.Starwson explicitly mentions ‘ex
falso quodlibeet.’ Any FALSE proposition entails any proposition, true or
false. And any TRUE proposition is entailed by any proposition, true or falso
(consequentia mirabilis). It is a commonplace
that Lewis, whom Grice calls a
‘blue-collared practioner of the sciences,’ Strawson thinks, hardly solved the
thing. The amendment by Lewis, for Strawson, has consequences scarcely less
paradoxical in terms of the implicatura. For if p is impossible, i.e.
self-contradictory, it is impossible that p and ~q. And if q is necessary,
~q is impossible and it is impossible that p and ~q; i. e., if p entails q
means it is impossible that p and ~q any necessary proposition is entailed by
any proposition and any self-contradictory proposition entails any proposition.
On the other hand, the definition by Lewis of ‘strict’ implication or
entailment (i.e. of the relation which holds from p to q whenever q is
deducible from p), Strawson thinks, obviously commends itself in some respects.
Now, it is clear that the emphasis laid on the expression-mentioning character
of the intensional contingent statement by writing ‘ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible
instead’ of ‘It is impossible that p and ~q’ does not avoid the alleged
paradoxes of entailment. But, Starwson optimistically thinks, it is equally
clear that the addition of some provision does avoid them. Strawson
proposes that one should use “p entails q” such that no necessary statement and
no negation of a necessary statement can significantly be said to “entail” or
be entailed by any statement; i. e. the function “p entails q” cannot take
necessary or self-contradictory statements as arguments. The expression “p
entails q” is to be used to mean “ ‘p ⊃ q’ is necessary,
and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q’ is either necessary or self-contradictory.” Alternatively,
“p entails q” should be used only to mean “ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible and neither ‘p’
nor ‘q,’ nor either of their contradictories, is necessary. In this way, Strawson
thinks the paradoxes are avoided. Strawson’s proof. Let us assume that p1
expresses a contingent, and q1 a necessary, proposition. p1 and ~q1 is now
impossible because ~q1 is impossible. But q1 is necessary. So, by that
provision, p1 does not entail q1. We may avoid the paradoxical assertion “p1
entails q2” as merely falling into the equally paradoxical assertion “ “p1
entails q1” is necessary.” For: If ‘q’ is necessary, ‘q is necessary’ is,
though true, not necessary, but a CONTINGENT INTENSIONAL (Latinate) statement. This becomes part of the
philosophers lexicon: intensĭo, f. intendo, which L and S render as
a stretching out, straining, effort. E. g. oculorum, Scrib. Comp. 255.
Also an intensifying, increase. Calorem suum (sol) intensionibus ac remissionibus
temperando fovet,” Sen. Q. N. 7, 1, 3. The tune: “gravis, media, acuta,”
Censor. 12. Hence: ‘~ (‘q’ is necessary)’ is, though false, possible.
Hence “p1 Λ ~ (q1 is necessary)” is, though false, possible. Hence ‘p1’ does NOT entail ‘q1 is necessary.’ Thus,
by adopting the view that an entailment statement, and other intensional
statements, are contingent, viz. non-necessary, and that no necessary statement
or its contradictory can entail or be entailed by any statement, Strawson
thinks he can avoid the paradox that a necessary proposition is entailed by any
proposition, and indeed all the other associated paradoxes of entailment. Grice objects that the alleged cure by
Strawson is worse than disease of Moore! The denial that a necessary proposition can
entail or be entailed by any proposition, and, therefore, that necessary
propositions can be related to each other by the entailment relation, is too
high a price to pay for the solution of the paradoxes, which are perfectly true
utterances with only this or that attending cancellable implicaturum. Strawson’s
introduction of ‘acc.’ makes sense. Which makes sense in that Philo first
supplied his truth-functional account of ‘if’ to criticise his tutor Diodorus
on modality. Philo reported to Diodorus something he had heard from Neptune. In
dreams, Neptune appeared to Philo and told him: “I saw down deep in the waters
a wooden trunk of a plant that only grows under weather – algae -- The trunk
can burn!” Neptune said.Awakening, Philo ran to Diodorus: “A wooden trunk deep
down in the ocean can burn.” Throughout this section, Strawson refers to a
‘primary or standard’ use of ‘if,’ of which the main characteristics are
various. First, that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of ‘if,’ there
could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of the
hypothetical and just one statement which would be its consequent. Second, that
the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement. Third, the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.’ This above
is the passage extrapolated by Grice. Grice does not care to report the
platitudionous ‘first’ ‘characteristic’ as Strawson rather verbosely puts it.
The way Grice reports it, it is not clear Strawson is listing THREE
characteristics. Notably, from the extrapolated quote, it would seem as if
Grice wishes his addressee to believe that Strawson thinks that characteristic
2 and characteristic 3 mix. On top, Grice omits a caveat immediately after the
passage he extrapolates. Strawso notes: “There is much more than this to be
said about this way of using ‘if;’ in particular, about the meaning of the
question whether the antecedent would be a GOOD ground or reason for accepting
the consequent, and about the exact way in which THIS question is related to
the question of whether the hypothetical is TRUE {acceptable, reasonable) or
not.’ Grice does not care to include a caveat by Strawson: “Not all uses of ‘if
,’ however, exhibit all these three characteristics.” In particular, there is a
use which has an equal claim to rank as standard ‘if’ and which is closely
connected with the use described, but which does not exhibit the first
characteristic and for which the description of the remainder must consequently
be modified. Strawson has in mind what
is sometimes called a ‘formal’ (by Whitehead and Russell) or 'variable' or
'general’ or ‘generic’ hypothetical. Strawson gives three examples. The first
example is ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts.’ This is Kantian. Cf. Grice on
indicative conditionals in the last Immanuel Kant Lecture. Grice: "It
should be, given that it is the case that one smears one's skin with peanut
butter before retiring and that it is the case that one has a relatively
insensitive skin, that it is the case that one preserves a youthful
complexion." More generally, there is some plausibility to the idea that
an exemplar of the form 'Should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' is true just in case a corresponding examplar of
the form 'Should (⊢
F, ⊢G;
⊢E)'
is true. Before proceeding further, I will attempt to deal briefly with a
possible objection which might be raised at this point. I can end imagine an
ardent descriptivist, who first complains, in the face of someone who wishes to
allow a legitimate autonomous status to practical acceptability
generalizations, that truth-conditions for such generalizations are not
available, and perhaps are in principle not available; so such generalizations
are not to be taken seriously. We then point out to him that, at least for a
class of such cases, truth-conditions are available, and that they are to be
found in related alethic generalizations, a kind of generalization he accepts.
He then complains that, if finding truth-conditions involves representing the
practical acceptability generalizations as being true just in case related
alethic generalizations are true, then practical acceptability generalizations
are simply reducible to alethic generalizations, and so are not to be taken
seriously for another reason, namely, that they are simply transformations of
alethic generalizations, and we could perfectly well get on without them. Maybe
some of you have heard some ardent descriptivists arguing in a style not so
very different from this. Now a deep reply to such an objection would involve
(I think) a display of the need for a system of reasoning in which the value to
be transmitted by acceptable inference is not truth but practical value,
together with a demonstration of the role of practical acceptability
generalizations in such a system. I suspect that such a reply could be
constructed, but I do not have it at my fingertips (or tongue-tip), so I shall
not try to produce it. An interim reply, however, might take the following
form: even though it may be true (which is by no means certain) that certain
practical acceptability generalizations have the same truth-conditions as
certain corresponding alethic generalizations, it is not to be supposed that
the former generalizations are simply reducible to the latter (in some
disrespectful sense of 'reducible'). For though both kinds of generalization are defeasible, they are not defeasible in the same
way; more exactly, what is a defeating condition for a given practical
generalization is not a defeating condition for its alethic counterpart. A
generalization of the form 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' may have, as a defeating condition, 'E*'; that is
to say, consistently with the truth of this generalization, it may be true that
'should (! E & ! E*, ⊢F;
! G*)' where 'G*' is
inconsistent with 'G'. But since, in the
alethic counterpart generalization 'should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)', 'E' does not occur
in the antecedent, 'E*' cannot be a defeating end p.92 condition for this
generalization. And, since liability to defeat by a certain range of defeating
conditions is essential to the role which acceptability generalizations play in
reasoning, this difference between a practical generalization and its alethic
counterpart is sufficient to eliminate the reducibility of the former to the
latter. To return to the main theme of this section. If, without further ado,
we were to accept at this point the suggestion that 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' is true just
in case 'should (⊢
F, ⊢G;
⊢E)'
is true, we should be accepting it simply on the basis of intuition (including,
of course, linguistic or logical intuition under the head of 'intuition'). If
the suggestion is correct then we should attain, at the same time, a stronger
assurance that it is correct and a better theoretical understanding of the
alethic and practical acceptability, if we could show why it is correct by
deriving it from some general principle(s). Kant, in fact, for reasons not
unlike these, sought to show the validity of a different but fairly closely
related Technical Imperative by just such a method. The form which he selects
is one which, in my terms, would be represented by "It is fully
acceptable, given let it be that B, that let it be that A" or "It is
necessary, given let it be that B, that let it be that A". Applying this
to the one fully stated technical imperative given in Grundlegung, we get
Kant’s hypothetical which is of the type Strawson calls ‘variable,’ formal,
‘generic,’ or ‘generic.’ Kant: “It is necessary, given let it be that one
bisect a line on an unerring principle, that let it be that I draw from its
extremities two intersecting arcs". Call this statement, (α). Though he
does not express himself very clearly, I am certain that his claim is that this
imperative is validated in virtue of the fact that it is, analytically, a
consequence of an indicative statement which is true and, in the present
context, unproblematic, namely, the statement vouched for by geometry, that if
one bisects a line on an unerring principle, then one does so only as a result
of having drawn from its extremities two intersecting arcs. Call this
statement, (β). His argument seems to be expressible as follows. (1) It is
analytic that he who wills the end (so far as reason decides his conduct),
wills the indispensable means thereto. (2) So it is analytic that (so far as
one is rational) if one wills that A, and judges that if A, then A as a result
of B, then one wills that B. end p.93 (3) So it is analytic that (so far as one
is rational) if one judges that if A, then A as a result of B, then if one
wills that A then one wills that B. (4) So it is analytic that, if it is true
that if A, then A as a result of B, then if let it be that A, then it must be
that let it be that B. From which, by substitution, we derive (5): it is
analytic that if β then α. Now it seems to me to be meritorious, on Kant's
part, first that he saw a need to justify hypothetical imperatives of this
sort, which it is only too easy to take for granted, and second that he invoked
the principle that "he who wills the end, wills the means";
intuitively, this invocation seems right. Unfortunately, however, the step from
(3) to (4) seems open to dispute on two different counts. (1) It looks as if an
unwarranted 'must' has appeared in the consequent of the conditional which is
claimed, in (4), as analytic; the most that, to all appearances, could be
claimed as being true of the antecedent is that 'if let it be that A then let
it be that B'. (2) (Perhaps more serious.) It is by no means clear by what
right the psychological verbs 'judge' and 'will', which appear in (3), are
omitted in (4); how does an (alleged) analytic connection between (i) judging
that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) its being the case that if one wills
that A then one wills that B yield an analytic connection between (i) it's
being the case that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) the 'proposition' that if
let it be that A then let it be that B? Can the presence in (3) of the phrase
"in so far as one is rational" legitimize this step? I do not know
what remedy to propose for the first of these two difficulties; but I will
attempt a reconstruction of Kant's line of argument which might provide relief
from the second. It might, indeed, even be an expansion of Kant's actual
thinking; but whether or not this is so, I am a very long way from being
confident in its adequacy. Back to Strawson. First example: ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts.’Or “If
apple goes up, apple goes down.” – Newton, “Principia Mathematica.” “If ice is
left in the sun, it, viz. ice, melts.” Strawson’s second example of a formal,
variable, generic, or general ‘if’ ‘If the side of a triangle is produced, the
exterior angle is equal to the sum of the two interior and opposite angles.’
Cf. Kant: “If a line on an unerring principle
is bisected, two intersecting arcs are drawn from its extremities.” Synthetical
propositions must no doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end;
but they do not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and
its realization. E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle
I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught
by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only
by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that,
if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an
analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something
as an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as
acting in this way. Strawson’s third
example: ‘If a child is very strictly disciplined in the nursery, it, viz. the
child, that should be seen but not heard, will develop aggressive tendencies in
adult life.’ To a statement made by the use of a sentence such as these there
corresponds no single pair of statements which are, respectively, its
antecedent and consequent. On the other hand,
for every such statement there is an indefinite number of NON-general, or not
generic, hypothetical statements which might be called exemplifications,
applications, of the variable hypothetical; e.g., a statement made by the use
of the sentence ‘If THIS piece of ice is left in the sun, it, viz. this piece,
melts.’Strawson, about to finish his section on “ ‘⊃’
and ‘if’,” – the expression, ‘’ ⊃’ and ‘if’” only
occurs in the “Table of Contents,” on p. viii, not in the body of the essay, as
found redundant – it is also the same title Strawson used for his essay which
circulated (or ‘made the rounds’) soon after Grice delivered his attack on
Strawson, and which Strawson had, first, the cheek to present it to PGRICE, and
then, voiding the idea of a festschrift, reprint it in his own compilation of
essays. -- from which Grice extracted the quote for “Prolegomena,” notes that
there are two ‘relatively uncommon uses of ‘if.’‘If he felt embarrassed, he
showed no signs of it.’It is this example that Grice is having in mind in the
fourth lecture on ‘indicative conditionals.’ “he didn’t show it.”Grice is
giving an instantiation of an IMPLICIT, or as he prefers, ‘contextual,’
cancellation of the implicaturum of ‘if.’
He does this to show that even if the implicaturum of ‘if’ is a
‘generalised,’ not ‘generic,’ or ‘general,’ one, it need not obtain or be
present in every PARTICULAR case. “That is why I use the weakened form
‘generalISED, not general. It’s all ceteris paribus always with me).” The
example Grice gives corresponds to the one Strawson listed as one of the two ‘relatively
uncommon’ uses of ‘if.’ By sticking with the biscuit conditional, Grice is
showing Strawson that this use is ‘relatively uncommon’ because it is
absolutely otiose! “If he was surprised,
he didn’t show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are. Variants by Grice
on his own example:“If Strawson was surprised, he did not show it.”“If he was
surprised, it is not the case that Strawson showed it, viz. that he was
surprised.”Grice (on the phone with Strawson’s friend) in front of Strawson –
present tense version:“If he IS surprised, it is not th case that he, Strawson,
is showing it, viz. the clause that he is surprised. Are you implicating he
SHOULD?”and a second group:‘If Rembrandt passes the exam at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, I am
a Dutchman.’‘If the Mad Hatter is not mad, I'll eat my hat.’(as opposed to ‘If
the Mad Hatter IS mad, I’ll eat HIS hat.’)Hats were made at Oxford in a
previous generation, by mad ‘hatters.’ “To eat one’s hat,” at Oxford, became
synonymous with ‘I’ll poison myself and die.’ The reason of the prevalence of
Oxonian ‘lunatic’ hatters is chemical. Strawson is referring to what he calls
an ‘old wives’ tale’As every grandmother at Oxford knows, the chemicals used in
hat-making include mercurious nitrate, which is used in ‘curing’ felt. Now exposure
to the mercury vapours cause mercury poisoning. Or, to use an ‘if’: “If Kant is
exposed to mercury vapour, Kant gets poisoned. A poisoned victim develops a severe and uncontrollable muscular
tremors and twitching limbs, distorted vision and confused speech,
hallucinations and psychosis, if not death. For a time, it was at Oxford
believed that a wearer of a hat could similarly die, especially by eating the
felt containing the mercurial nitrate. The sufficient and necessary condition
of the truth of a statement made by “If he was surprised, it is not the case
that Strawson showed it, viz. that he was surprised” is that it is not the case
that Strawson showed that he was surprised. The antecedent is otiose. Cf. “If
you are hungry, there are biscuits in the cupboard.’ Austin used to expand the
otiose antecedent further, ‘If you are hungry – AND EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT – there
are biscuits in the cupboard,” just in case someone was ignorant of Grice’s
principle of conversational helpfulness. Consequently, Strawson claims that such
a statement cannot be treated either as a standard hypothetical or as a
material implication. This is funny because by the time Grice is criticizing
Strawson he does take “If Strawson is surprised, it is not the case that he is
showing it, viz. that he is surprised.” But when it comes to “Touch the beast
and it will bite you” he is ready to say that here we do not have a case of
‘conjunction.’Why? Stanford.Stanford is the answer.Grice had prepared the text
to deliver at Stanford, of all places. Surely, AT STANFORD, you don’t want to
treat your addressee idiotically. What Grice means is:“Now let us consider
‘Touch the beast and it will bite you.’ Symbolise it: !p et !q. Turn it into
the indicative: You tell your love and love bites you (variant on William
Blake).” Grice: “One may object to the
use of ‘p.q’ on Whiteheadian grounds. Blue-collared practitioners of the
sciences will usually proclaim that they do not care about the ‘realisability’
of this or that operator. In fact, the very noun, ‘realisability,’ irritated me
so that I coined non-detachability as a balance. The blue-collared scientist will
say that ‘and’ is really Polish, and should be PRE-FIXED as an “if,” or
condition, or proviso. So that the conjunction becomes “Provided you tell your
love, love bites you.”Strawson gives his reason about the ‘implicaturum’ of
what P. L. Gardiner called the ‘dutchman’ ‘if,’ after G. F. Stout’s “
‘hat-eating’ if.” Examples of the second
kind are sometimes erroneously treated as evidence that Philo was not crazy,
and that ‘if’ does, after all, behave somewhat as ‘⊃’
behaves. Boethius appropriately
comments: “Philo had two drawbacks against his favour. He had no drawing board,
and he couldn’t write. Therefore he never symbolized, other than ‘via
verba,’ his ‘ei’ utterance, “If it is
day, it is night,” which he held to be true “at night only.”” Strawson echoes
Grice. The evidence for this conversational explanation of the oddity of the
‘dutcham’ if, as called by Gardiner, and the ‘hat-eating’ if, as called by
Stout, is, presumably, the facts, first, that the relation between antecedent
and consequent is non-Kantian. Recall that Kant has a ‘Funktion’ which, after
Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ and Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ he called ‘Relation’ where he
considers the HYPOTHETICAL. Kant expands in section 8.5. “In the hypothetical,
‘If God exists, I’ll eat my hat,’ existence is no predicate.”Strawson appeals
to a second, “more convincing,” fact, viz. that the consequent is obviously not
– in the Dutchman ‘if,’ or not to be, in the ‘hat-eating’ if, fulfilled, or
true.Grice’s passing for a Dutchman and sitting for an exam at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, hardly
makes him a Dutchman.Dickens was well aware of the idiocy of people blaming
hatters for the increases of deaths at Oxford. He would often expand the
consequent in a way that turned it “almost a Wittgensteinian ‘contradiction’”
(“The Cricket in the House, vii). “If the Hatter is not mad, I will eat my hat,
with my head in it.”Grice comments: “While it is analytic that you see with
your eyes, it is not analytic that you eat with your mouth. And one can imagine
Dickens’s mouth to be situated in his right hand. Therefore, on realizing that
the mad hatter is not mad, Dickens is allowing for it to be the case that he
shall eat his hat, with his head in it. Since not everybody may be aware of the
position of Dickens’s mouth, I shall not allot this common-ground status.”Strawson
gives a third Griciean fact.“The intention of the emissor, by uttering a
‘consequens falsum’ that renders the ‘conditionalis’ ‘verum’ only if the
‘antecedens’ is ‘falsum, is an emphatic, indeed, rude, gesture, with a
gratuitious nod to Philo, to the conviction that the antecedens is not
fulfilled either. The emissor is further abiding by what Grice calls the
‘principle of truth,’ for the emissor would rather see himself dead than
uttering a falsehood, even if he has to fill the conversational space with
idiocies like ‘dutchman-being’ and ‘hat-eating.’ The fourth Griceian fact is
obviously Modus Tollendo Tollens, viz. that “(p ⊃ q) . ~q” entails
“~p,” or rather, to avoid the metalanguage (Grice’s Bootlace: Don’t use a
metalanguage: you can only implicate that your object-language is not
objectual.”), “[(p ⊃ q) . ~ q] ⊃ ~ p.”At this
point, Strawson reminisces: “I was slightly surprised that on my first tutorial
with Grice, he gave me “What the Tortoise Said To Achilles,” with the hint,
which I later took as a defeasible implicaturum, “See if you can resolve this!”
ACHILLEs had overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its
back. "So you've got to the end of our race-course?" said the
Tortoise. "Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances
? I thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldnl't be doiie
? " " It can be done," said Achilles. " It has been done!
Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constaiitly diminishing; and
so-" "But if they had beenl constantly increasing?" the Tortoise
interrupted. "How then?" "Then I shouldn't be here,"
Achilles modestly replied; "and you would have got several times round the
world, by this time! " "You flatter me-flatten, I mean," said
the Tortoise; "for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would
you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the
end of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of
distances, each one longer than the previous one? " "Very much indeed
!" said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian
warriors possessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil.
"Proceed! And speak slowly, please! Shorthand isn't invented yet !"
"That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid! " the Tortoise miurmured
dreamily. "You admire Euclid?" "Passionately! So far, at least,
as one can admire a treatise that wo'n't be published for some centuries to
come ! " "Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that
First Proposition-just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly
enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's
call them A, B, and Z:- (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each
other. (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the
same. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other. Readers of
Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that
any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?" "
Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School-as. soon as High Schools are
invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later-will grant
that." " And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he
might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?" NOTES. 279
"No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say 'I accept as true the
Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't
accept A and B as true.' Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid,
and taking to football." " And might there not also be some reader
who would say ' I accept A anld B as true, but I don't accept the
Hypothetical'?" "Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to
football." "And neither of these readers," the Tortoise
continued, "is as yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as
true?" "Quite so," Achilles assented. "Well, now, I want
you to consider me as a reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically,
to accept Z as true." " A tortoise playing football would be--"
Achilles was beginning " -an anomaly, of course," the Tortoise
hastily interrupted. "Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and
football afterwards !" " I'm to force you to accept Z, am I?"
Achilles said musingly. "And your present position is that you accept A
and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical-" " Let's call it
C," said the Tortoise. "-but you don't accept (C) If A and B are
true, Z must be true." "That is my present position," said the
Tortoise. "Then I must ask you to accept C." - "I'll do
so," said the Tortoise, "as soon as you've entered it in that
note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?" " Only a few
memoranda," said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: "a few
memoranda of-of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!"
"Plenty of blank leaves, I see !" the Tortoise cheerily remarked.
"We shall need them all !" (Achilles shuddered.) "Now write as I
dictate: (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. (B) The
two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same. (C) If A and
B are true, Z must be true. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to
each other." " You should call it D, not Z," said Achilles.
" It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must
accept Z." "And why must I?" "Because it follows logically
from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I
imagine ?" "If A and B and C are true, Z must be true," the
Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. " That's another Hypothetical, isn't it?
And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and still not
accept Z, mightn't I?" "You might," the candid hero admitted;
"though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is
possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical." " Very
good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will
call it (D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. Have you entered that in
your note-book ? " " I have! " Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as
he ran the pencil into its sheath. "And at last we've got to the end of
this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you
accept Z." " Do I ? " said the Tortoise innocently. " Let's
make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to
accept Z? " 280 NOTES. " Then Logic would take you by the throat, and
force you to do it !" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would
tell you 'You ca'n't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and
D, you mvust accept Z!' So you've no choice, you see." "Whatever
Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise.
" So enter it in your book, please. We will call it (E) If A and B and C
and Dare true, Zmust be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't
grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?" "I see," said
Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone. Here the narrator,
having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and
did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so,
Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was
writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was
saying " Have you got that last step written down ? Unless I've lost
count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come.
And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction
this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth
Century-would you mnind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then
make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught- Us ?" "As you
please !" replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he
buried his face in his hands. " Provided that you, for your part, will
adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A
Kill-Ease !"Strawon protests:“But this is a strange piece of logic.”Grice
corrects: “Piece – you mean ‘piece’ simpliciter.”“But what do you protest that
much!?”“Well, it seems that, on any possible interpretation, “if p, q” has, in
respect of modus tollendo tollens the same powers as ‘p ⊃
q.’“And it is just these powers that
you, and Cook Wilson before you, are jokingly (or fantastically) exploiting!”“Fantastically?”
“You call Cook Wilson ‘fantastical’? You can call me exploitative.’Strawson: “It
is the absence of Kantian ‘Relation,’ Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ Aristotle’s ‘pros
ti,’ referred to in that makes both Stout’s hat-eating if and Gardiner’s
dutchman if quirks (as per Sir Randolph Quirk, another Manx, like Quine), a
verbal or conversational flourish, an otiosity, alla Albritton, an odd, call it
Philonian, use of ‘if.’ If a hypothetical statement IS, as Grice, after Philo,
claims, is what Whitehead and Russell have as a ‘material’ implication, the
statements would be not a quirkish oddity, but a linguistic sobriety and a
simple truth. Or rather they are each, the dutchman if and the hat-eating if, each a ‘quirkish
oddity’ BECAUSE each is a simple, sober, truth. “Recall my adage,” Grice
reminded Strawson, “Obscurely baffling, but Hegelianly true!”Strawson notes, as
a final commentary on the relevant section, that ‘if’ can be employed PERFORMATORILY, which will
have Grice finding his topic for the Kant lectures at Stanford: “must” is
univocal in “Apples must fall,” and “You must not lie.”An ‘if’ is used
‘performatorily’ when it is used not simply in making this or that statement,
but in, e.g., making a provisional announcement of an intention. Strawson’s
example:“If it rains, I shall stay at home.”Grice corrected:“*I* *will* stay at
home. *YOU* *shall.*”“His quadruple implicatura never ceased to amaze me.”Grice
will take this up later in ‘Ifs and cans.’“If I can, I intend to climb Mt
Everest on hands and knees, if I may disimplicate that to Davidson.”This hich,
like an unconditional announcement of intention, Strawson “would rather not”
call ‘truly true’ or ‘falsely false.’ “I would rather describe it in some other
way – Griceian perhaps.” “A quessertion, not to be iterated.”“If the man who
utters the quoted sentence leaves home in spite of the rain, we do not say that
what he said was false, though we might say that he lied (never really intended
to stay in) ; or that he changed his mind – which, Strawson adds, “is a form of
lying to your former self.” “I agreed with you!” Grice screamed from the other
side of the Quadrangle!Strawson notes: “There are further uses of ‘if’ which I
shall not discuss.”This is a pantomime for Austin (Strawson’s letter to Grice,
“Austin wants me to go through the dictionary with ‘if.’ Can you believe it,
Grice, that the OED has NINE big pages on it?! And the sad thing is that Austin
has already did ‘if’ in “Ifs and cans.” Why is he always telling OTHERS what to
do?”Strawson’s Q. E. D.: “The safest way to read the material implication sign
is, perhaps, ‘not both … and not …,” and avoid the ‘doubt’ altogether. (NB: “Mr.
H. P. Grice, from whom I never ceased to learn about logic since he was my
tutor for my Logic paper in my PPE at St. John’s back in the day, illustrates
me that ‘if’ in Frisian means ‘doubt.’ And he adds, “Bread, butter, green
cheese; very good English, very good Friese!”. GROUP C – “Performatory”
theories – descriptive, quasi-descriptive, prescriptive – examples not
lettered.EXAMPLE I: Strawson on ‘true’ in Analysis.EXAMPLE II: Austin on ‘know’
EXAMPLE III: Hare on ‘good.’EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: if p, qIMPLICITLY CONVEYED: p
is the consequensCANCELLATION: “I know perfectly well where your wife is, but
all I’ll say is that if she is not in kitchen she is in the bedroom.”Next would
be to consider uses of ‘implication’ in the essay on the ‘indicative conditional.’
We should remember that the titling came out in 1987. The lecture circulated
without a title for twenty years. And in fact, it is about ‘indicative
conditional’ AND MORE BESIDES, including Cook Wilson, if that’s a plus. Grice
states the indirectness condition in two terms:One in the obviously false terms
“q is INFERRABLE, that’s the word Grice uses, from p”The other one is in terms
of truth-value assignment:The emissor has NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL GROUNDS for the
emissum, ‘if p, q’. In Grice’s parlance: “Grounds for ACCEPTING “p ⊃
q.”This way Grice chooses is controversial in that usually he holds ‘accept’ as
followed by the ‘that’-clause. So ‘accepting ‘p ⊃ q’” is not clear
in that respect. A rephrase would be, accepting that the emissor is in a
position to emit, ‘if p, q’ provided that what he EXPLICITLY CONVEYS by that is
what is explicitly conveyed by the Philonian ‘if,’ in other words, that the
emissor is explicitly conveying that it is the case of p or it is not the case
of q, or that it is not the case that a situation obtains such that it is the
case that p and it is not the case that q.“p ⊃ q” is F only in
the third row. It is no wonder that Grice says that the use-mention was only
used correctly ONCE.For Grice freely uses ‘the proposition that p ⊃
q.’ But this may be licensed because it was meant as for ‘oral delivery.’ THE
FIRST INSTANTIATION GRICE GIVES (WoW:58) is“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith,
is attending the meeting.”Grice goes on (WoW:59) to give FIVE alternatives to
the ‘if’ utterance, NOT using ‘if.’ For the first four, he notes that he fells
the ‘implicaturum’ of ‘indirectness’ seems ‘persistent.’On WoW:59, Grice refers
to Strawson as a ‘strong theorist,’ and himself as a ‘weak theorist,’ i. e. an
Occamist. Grice gives a truth-table or the ‘appropriate truth table,’ and its
formulation, and notes that he can still detect the indirectness condition
implication. Grice challenges Strawson. How is one to learn that what one
conveys by the scenario formulated in the truth-table for the pair “Smith is in
London” and “Smith is attending the meeting” – without using ‘if’ because this
is Grice’s exercise in detachment – is WEAKER than what one would convey by “If
Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith, is attending the meeting”?This sort of
rhetorical questions – “Of course he can’t” are a bit insidious. Grice failed
to give Strawson a copy of the thing. And Strawson is then invited to
collaborate with P. G. R. I. C. E., so he submits a rather vague “If and ⊃,”
getting the rebuke by Grice’s friend Bennett – “Strawson could at least say
that Grice’s views were published in three different loci.” BUT: Strawson
compiled that essay in 1968. And Strawson was NOT relying on a specific essay
by Grice, but on his memory of the general manoeuvre. Grice had been lecturing
on ‘if’ before at Oxford, in seminars entitled “Logic and Convesation.” But surely
at Oxford you are not supposed to ‘air’ your seminar views. Outside Oxford it
might be different. It shoud not!And surely knowing Grice, why would *GRICE*
provide the input to Strawson. For Grice, philosophy is very personal, and
while Grice might have thought that Sir Peter was slightly interested in what
his former tutor would say about ‘if,’ it would be inappropriate of the tutor
to overwhelm the tutee, or keep informing the tutee how wrong he is. For a
tutor, once a tutee, always a tutee. On WoW:59, Grice provides the FIRST
CANCELLATION of an ‘if,’ and changes it slightly from the one on p. 58. The
‘if’ now becomesIf Smith is in the library, he, viz. Smith, is working.’In
Wiltshire:“If Smith is in the swimming-pool library, he, viz. Smith, is swimming.”THE
CANCELLATION GOES by ‘opting out’:“I know just where Smith is and what he, viz.
Smith, is doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library he is
working.”Grice had to keep adding his ‘vizes’ – viz. Smith – because of the
insidious contextualists – some of them philosophical!“What do you mean ‘he,’ –
are you sure you are keeping the denotatum constant?”Grice is challenging
Strawson’s ‘uncertainty and disbelief.’No one would be surprised if Grice’s
basis for his saying “I know just where Smith is and what he, viz. Smith, is
doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library, he is working”
is that Grice has just looked in the library and found Smith working. So, Grice
IS uttering “If Smith is in the library, he is working” WHEN THE INDIRECT
(strong) condition ceteris-paribus carried by what Grice ceteris paribus
IMPLIES by uttering “If Smith is in the library, Smith is working.”The
situation is a bit of the blue, because Grice presents it on purpose as
UNVOLUNTEERED. The ‘communication-function’ does the trick. GRICE THEN GIVES
(between pages WoW: 59 and 60) TWO IMPLICIT cancellations of an implicaturum,
or, to avoid the alliteration, ‘contextual’ cancellation. Note incidentally
that Grice is aware of the explicit/implicit when he calls the cancellation,
first, EXPLICIT, and then contextual. By ‘explicit,’ he means, ‘conveying
explicitly’ in a way that commits you. THE THIRD INSTANTIATION refers to this
in what he calls a ‘logical’ puzzle, which may be a bit question-begging, cf. ‘appropriate
truth-table.’ For Strawson would say that Grice is using ‘if’ as a conscript,
when it’s a civil. “If Smith has black, Mrs. Smith has black.”Grice refers to
‘truth-table definition’ OR STIPULATION. Note that the horseshoe is an inverted
“C” for ‘contentum.’F. Cajori, “A history of mathematical notations,” SYMBOLS
IN MATHEMATICAL LOGIC, §667-on : [§674] “A theory of the ‘meccanisme du
raisonnement’ is offered by J. D. Gergonne in his “Essai de dialectique
rationnelle.”In Gergonne’s “Essai,” “H” stands for complete logical
disjunction, X” for logical product, “I” for "identity," [cf. Grize
on izzing] “C” for "contains," and "Ɔ (inverted C)" for
"is contained in." [§685] Gergonne
is using the Latinate, contineoIn rhet., the neuter substantive “contĭnens” is rendered as “that
on which something rests or depends, the chief point, hinge: “causae,” Cic. Part. Or. 29, 103; id. Top. 25, 95: “intuendum videtur, quid sit quaestio, ratio, judicatio, continens, vel ut alii vocant, firmamentum,” Quint. 3, 11, 1; cf. id. ib. § 18 sqq.—Adv.: contĭnen-ter . So it is a natural evolution in
matters of implication. while Giusberti (“Materiale per studio,” 31) always
reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally has the pretty Griciean “precontenti,”
from “prae” and “contenti.” Cf. Quine, “If my father was a bachelor, he was
male. And I can say that, because ‘male’ is CONTAINED in ‘bachelor.’”E.
Schröder, in his “Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik,” [§690] Leipzig, uses “⊂” for "untergeordnet”,
roughly, “is included in,” and the inverted “⊃” for the passive
voice, "übergeordnet,” or includes.
Some additional symbols are introduced by Peano into Number 2 of Volume
II of his influential “Formulaire.” Thus "ɔ" becomes ⊃.
By “p.⊃ x ... z. q” is expressed “from p one
DEDUCES, whatever x ... z may be, and q."
In “Il calcolo geometrico,” – “according to the Ausdehnungslehre of H. Grassmann,
preceded by the operations of deductive logic,” Peano stresses the duality of
interpretations of “p.⊃ x ... z. q” in terms of classes and
propositions. “We shall indicate [the universal affirmative proposition] by the
expression A < B, or B > A, which can be read "every A is a B,"
or "the class B CONTAINS A." [...]
Hence, if a,b,... are CONDITIONAL propositions, we have: a < b, or b > a, ‘says’ that "the
class defined by the condition a is part of that defined by b," or [...]
"b is a CONSEQUENCE of a," "if a is true, b is true." In Peano’s “Arithmetices principia: nova
methodo exposita,” we have: “II.
Propositions.” “The sign “C” means is a consequence of [“est consequentia.” Thus
b C a is read b is a consequence of the proposition a.” “The sign “Ɔ” means one
deduces [DEDUCITUR]; thus “a Ɔ b” ‘means’ the same as b C a. [...] IV. Classes “The sign Ɔ ‘means’ is contained
in. Thus a Ɔ b means class a is contained in class b. a, b ∈ K Ɔ (a Ɔ b) :=: (x)(x
∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b). In his “Formulaire,” Peano writes: “Soient a et b des Cls. a ⊃
b signifie "tout a est b".
Soient p et q des propositions contenant une variable x; p ⊃x
q, signifie "de p on déduit, quel que soit x, la q", c'est-à-dire:
"les x qui satisfont à la condition p satisferont aussi à la q". Russell criticizes Peano’s dualism in “The
Principles of mathematics,” §13. “The subject of Symbolic Logic consists of
three parts, the calculus of propositions, the calculus of classes and the
calculus of relations. Between the first two, there is, within limits, a
certain parallelism, which arises as follows: In any symbolic expression, the
letters may be interpreted as classes or as propositions, and the relation of
inclusion in the one case may be replaced by that of formal implication in the
other. A great deal has been made of
this duality, and in the later editions of his “Formulaire,” Peano appears to
have sacrificed logical precision to its preservation. But, as a matter of
fact, there are many ways in which the calculus of propositions differs from
that of classes.” Whiehead and Russell borrow the basic logical symbolism from
Peano, but they freed it from the "dual" interpretation. Thus, Whitehead and Russell adopt Schröder's ⊂
for class inclusion: a ⊂
b :=: (x)(x ∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b) Df. and restricted the use of the
"horseshoe" ⊃ to the connective "if’: “p⊃q.’
Whitehead’s and Russell’s decision isobvious, if we consider the following
example from Cesare Burali-Forti, “Logica Matematica,” a Ɔ b . b Ɔ c : Ɔ : a Ɔ
c [...] The first, second and fourth
[occurrences] of the sign Ɔ mean is contained, the third one means one deduces.So
the horseshoe is actually an inverted “C” meant to read “contentum” or
“consequens” (“consequutum”). Active Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Present participle: implicāns; implicántis Future participle: implicītúrus;
implicātúrus Gerund: implicándum Gerundive: implicándus Passive Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Perfect participle: implicī́tum; implicā́tumGRICE’s second implicit or
contextual cancellation does not involve a ‘logical puzzle’ but bridge – and
it’s his fourth instantiation:“If I have a red king, I also have a black king.”
– to announce to your competititve opponents upon inquiry a bid of five no
trumps. Cf. Alice, “The red Queen” which is a chess queen, as opposed to the
white queen. After a precis, he gives a FIFTH instantiation to prove that ‘if’
is always EXPLICITLY cancellable.WoW:60“If you put that bit of sugar in water, it
will dissolve, though so far as I know there can be no way of knowing in
advance that this will happen.”This is complex. The cancellation turns the ‘if
p, q’ into a ‘guess,’ in which case it is odd that the emissor would be
guessing and yet be being so fortunate as to make such a good guess. At the end
of page 60, Grice gives THREE FURTHER instantations which are both of
philosophical importance and a pose a problem to such a strong theorist as
Strawson.The first of the trio is:“If the Australians win the first Test, they
will win the series, you mark my words.”The second of the trio is:“Perhaps if
he comes, he will be in a good mood.”The third in the trio is:“See that, if he
comes, he gets his money.”Grice’s point is that in the three, the implicaturum
is cancelled. So the strong theorist has to modify the thesis ‘a sub-primary
case of a sub-primary use of ‘if’ is…” which seems like a heavy penalty for the
strong theorist. For Grice, the strong theorist is attaching the implicaturum
to the ‘meaning’ of ‘if,’ where, if attached at all, should attach to some
mode-marker, such as ‘probably,’ which may be contextual. On p. 61 he is
finding play and using ‘logically weaker’ for the first time, i. e. in terms of
entailment. If it is logically weaker, it is less informative. “To deny that p,
or to assert that q.”Grice notes it’s ceteris paribus.“Provided it would be
worth contributing with the ‘more informative’ move (“why deny p? Why assert
q?) While the presumption that one is interested in the truth-values of at
least p or q, this is ceteris paribus. A philosopher may just be interested in
“if p, q” for the sake of exploring the range of the relation between p and q,
or the powers of p and q. On p. 62 he uses the phrase “non-truth functional” as
applied not to grounds but to ‘evidence’: “non-truth-functional evidence.”Grice
wants to say that emissor has implicated, in a cancellable way, that he has
non-truth-functional evidence for “if p, q,” i. e. evidence that proceeds by
his inability to utter “if p, q” on truth-functional grounds. The emissor is
signaling that he is uttering “if p, q” because he cannot deny p, or that he
cannot assert q(p ⊃ q) ≡
((~p) v q)Back to the first instantiation“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith
is attending the meeting there, viz. in London”I IMPLICATE, in a cancellable
way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is not in London”I IMPLICATE, in a
cancellable way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is attending the lecture.On
p. 61 he gives an example of an contextual cancellation to show that even if
the implicaturum is a generalised one, it need not be present in every PARTICULAR
case (hence the weakned form ‘generalISED, not general). “If he was surprised,
he didn’t show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are biscuits in the
cupboard. Traditionalist Grice on the tranquil Elysium of philosophyĒlysĭum ,
ii, n., = Ἠλύσιον, the abode of the blest, I.Elysium, Verg. A. 5, 735 Serv.; 6,
542; 744 al.; cf. Heyne Verg. A. 6, 675 sq.; and ejusd. libri Exc. VIII. p.
1019 Wagn.—Hence, II. Ēlysĭus , a, um, adj., Elysian: “campi,” Verg. G. 1, 38;
Tib. 1, 3, 58; Ov. Ib. 175; cf. “ager,” Mart. 10, 101: “plagae,” id. 6, 58:
“domus,” Ov. M. 14, 111; cf. “sedes,” Luc. 3, 12: “Chaos,” Stat. Th. 4, 520:
“rosae,” Prop. 4 (5), 7, 60. “puella,” i. e. Proserpine, Mart. 10, 24.—On p.
63, Grice uses ‘sense’ for the first time to apply to a Philonian ‘if p, q.’He
is exploring that what Strawson would have as a ‘natural’ if, not an artificial
‘if’ like Philo’s, may have a sense that descends from the sense of the
Philonian ‘if,’ as in Darwin’s descent of man. Grice then explores the ‘then’
in some formulations, ‘if p, then q’, and notes that Philo never used it, “ei”
simpliciter – or the Romans, “si.”Grice plays with the otiosity of “if p, in
that case q.”And then there’s one that Grice dismisses as ultra-otiose:“if p,
then, in that case, viz. p., q.”Grice then explores ‘truth-functional’ now
applied not to ‘evidence’ but to ‘confirmation.’“p or q” is said to be
truth-functionally confirmable.While “p horseshoe q’ is of course truth-functionally
confirmable.Grice has doubts that ‘if p, q’ may be regarded by Strawson as NOT
being ‘truth-functionally confirmable.’ If would involve what he previously
called a ‘metaphysical excrescence.’Grice then reverts to his bridge example“If
I have a red king, I have a black king.”And provides three scenarios for a
post-mortem truth-functional confirmability.For each of the three rowsNo red,
no blackRed, no blackRed, blackWhich goes ditto for the ‘logical’ puzzleIf Jones has black, Mrs.
Jones has black. The next crop of instantiations come from PM, and begins on p.
64.He kept revising these notes. And by the time he was submitting the essay to
the publisher, he gives up and kept the last (but not least, never latter)
version. Grice uses the second-floor ‘disagree,’ and not an explicit ‘not.’ So
is partially agreeing a form of disagreeing? In 1970, Conservative Heath won to
Labour Wilson.He uses ‘validate’ – for ‘confirm’. ‘p v q’ is validated iff
proved factually satisfactory.On p. 66 he expands“if p, q”as a triple
disjunction of the three rows when ‘if p, q’ is true:“(not-p and not-q) or
(not-p and q) or (p and q)”The only left out is “(p and not-q).”Grice gives an
instantiation for [p et]q“The innings closed at 3:15, Smith no batting.”as
opposed to“The inning close at 3:15, and Smith did not bat.”as displayed byp.qAfter
using ‘or’ for elections he gives the first instantation with ‘if’:“If Wilson
will not be prime minister, it will be Heath.”“If Wilson loses, he loses to
Heath.”‘if’ is noncommutative – the only noncommutative of the three dyadic
truth-functors he considers (‘and,’ ‘or’ and ‘if’).This means that there is a
‘semantic’ emphasis here.There is a distinction between ‘p’ and ‘q’. In the
case of ‘and’ and ‘or’ there is not, since ‘p and q’ iff ‘q and p’ and ‘p or q’
iff ‘q or p.’The distinction is expressed in terms of truth-sufficiency and
false-sufficiency.The antecedent or protasis, ‘p’ is FALSE-SUFFICIENT for the
TRUTH of ‘if p, q.’The apodosis is TRUE-sufficient for the truth of ‘if p, q.’On
p. 67 he raises three questions.FIRST QUESTIONHe is trying to see ‘if’ as
simpler:The three instantiations areIf Smith rings, the butler will let Smith
inIt is not the case that Smith rings, or the butler will let Smith in.It is
not the case both Smith rings and it is not the the butler will let Smith in. (Grice
changes the tense, since the apodosis sometimes requires the future tense)
(“Either Smith WILL RING…”)SECOND QUESTIONWhy did the Anglo-Saxons feel the
need for ‘if’ – German ‘ob’? After all, if Whitehead and Russell are right, the
Anglo-Saxons could have done with ‘not’ and ‘and,’ or indeed with
‘incompatible.’The reason is that ‘if’ is cognate with ‘doubt,’ but The
Anglo-Saxons left the doubt across the North Sea. it
originally from an oblique case of the substantive which may be rendered as
"doubt,” and cognate with archaic German “iba,” which may be rendered as
“condition, stipulation, doubt," Old Norse if "doubt,
hesitation," modern Swedish jäf "exception,
challenge")It’s all different with ‘ei’ and ‘si.’For sisī (orig. and ante-class. form seī ),I.conj. [from
a pronominal stem = Gr. ἑ; Sanscr. sva-, self; cf. Corss. Ausspr. 1,
778; Georg Curtius
Gr. Etym. 396], a conditional particle, if.As
for “ei”εἰ , Att.-Ion. and Arc. (for εἰκ, v. infr. 11 ad init.), = Dor. and
Aeol. αἰ, αἰκ (q. v.), Cypr.A.“ἤ” Inscr.Cypr.135.10 H., both εἰ and αἰ in Ep.:— Particle used interjectionally
with imper. and to express a wish, but usu. either in conditions, if, or in indirect questions, whether. In the former use its
regular negative is μή; in the latter, οὐ.THIRD QUESTION. Forgetting Grecian neutral
apodosis and protasis, why did the Romans think that while ‘antecedens’ is a
good Humeian rendition of ‘protasis,’ yet instead they chose for the Grecian
Humeian ‘apodosis,’ the not necessarily Humeian ‘con-sequens,’ rather than mere
‘post-sequens’?The Latin terminology is antecedens and consequens, the
ancestors and ... tothem the way the Greek grammatical termsή πρότασιs and
ήαπόδοσιsBRADWARDINE: Note that a consequence is an argumentation made up of an
antecedent and a consequent. He starts with the métiers.For ‘or’ he speaks of
‘semiotic economy’ (p. 69). Grice’s Unitarianism – unitary particle.If,
like iff, is subordinating, but only if is non-commutative. Gazdar considers
how many dyadic particles are possible and why such a small bunch is chosen.
Grice did not even care, as Strawson did, to take care of ‘if and only if.’ Grice
tells us the history behind the ‘nursery rhyme’ about Cock Robin. He learned it
from his mother, Mabel Fenton, at Harborne. Clifton almost made it forget it!
But he recovered in the New World, after reading from Colin Sharp that many of
those nursery rhymes travelled “with the Mayflower.” "Who Killed Cock
Robin" is an English nursery rhyme, which has been much used as a murder
archetype[citation needed] in world culture. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number
of 494. Contents 1Lyrics 2Origin and
meaning 3Notes 4 External links Lyrics[edit] The earliest record of the rhyme
is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published c. 1744, which noted only the
first four verses. The extended version given below was not printed until c.
1770.[1] Who killed Cock Robin? I, said
the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin. Who saw him die? I,
said the Fly, with my little eye, I saw him die. Who caught his blood? I, said
the Fish, with my little dish, I caught his blood. Who'll make the shroud? I,
said the Beetle, with my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud. Who'll dig
his grave? I, said the Owl, with my little trowel, I'll dig his grave. Who'll
be the parson? I, said the Rook, with my little book, I'll be the parson.
Who'll be the clerk? I, said the Lark, if it's not in the dark, I'll be the
clerk. Who'll carry the link? I, said the Linnet, I'll fetch it in a minute,
I'll carry the link. Who'll be chief mourner? I, said the Dove, I mourn for my
love, I'll be chief mourner. Who'll carry the coffin? I, said the Kite, if it's
not through the night, I'll carry the coffin. Who'll bear the pall? We, said
the Wren, both the cock and the hen, We'll bear the pall. Who'll sing a psalm?
I, said the Thrush, as she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm. Who'll toll the
bell? I, said the Bull, because I can pull, I'll toll the bell. All the birds
of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor
Cock Robin. The rhyme has often been reprinted with illustrations, as suitable
reading material for small children.[citation needed] The rhyme also has an
alternative ending, in which the sparrow who killed Cock Robin is hanged for
his crime.[2] Several early versions picture a stocky, strong-billed bullfinch
tolling the bell, which may have been the original intention of the
rhyme.[3] Origin and meaning[edit]
Although the song was not recorded until the mid-eighteenth century,[4] there is
some evidence that it is much older. The death of a robin by an arrow is
depicted in a 15th-century stained glass window at Buckland Rectory,
Gloucestershire,[5] and the rhyme is similar to a story, Phyllyp Sparowe,
written by John Skelton about 1508.[1] The use of the rhyme 'owl' with
'shovel', could suggest that it was originally used in older middle English
pronunciation.[1] Versions of the story appear to exist in other countries,
including Germany.[1] A number of the
stories have been advanced to explain the meaning of the rhyme: The rhyme records a mythological event, such
as the death of the god Balder from Norse mythology,[1] or the ritual sacrifice
of a king figure, as proposed by early folklorists as in the 'Cutty Wren'
theory of a 'pagan survival'.[6][7] It is a parody of the death of King William
II, who was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest (Hampshire) in
1100, and who was known as William Rufus, meaning "red".[8] The rhyme
is connected with the fall of Robert Walpole's government in 1742, since Robin
is a diminutive form of Robert and the first printing is close to the time of
the events mentioned.[1] All of these theories are based on perceived
similarities in the text to legendary or historical events, or on the similarities
of names. Peter Opie pointed out that an existing rhyme could have been adapted
to fit the circumstances of political events in the eighteenth century.[1] The theme of Cock Robin's death as well as
the poem's distinctive cadence have become archetypes, much used in literary
fiction and other works of art, from poems, to murder mysteries, to
cartoons.[1] Notes[edit] ^ Jump up to:a
b c d e f g h I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
(Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 130–3. ^ * Cock Robin at
Project Gutenberg ^ M. C. Maloney, ed., English illustrated books for children:
a descriptive companion to a selection from the Osborne Collection (Bodley
Head, 1981), p. 31. ^ Lockwood, W. B. "The Marriage of the Robin and the
Wren." Folklore 100.2 (1989): 237–239. ^ The gentry house that became the
old rectory at Buckland has an impressive timbered hall that dates from the
fifteenth century with two lights of contemporary stained glass in the west
wall with the rebus of William Grafton and arms of Gloucester Abbey in one and
the rising sun of Edward IV in the other light; birds in various attitudes hold
scrolls "In Nomine Jesu"; none is reported transfixed by an arrow in
Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500:
Southern England, s.v. "Buckland Old Rectory, Gloucestershire",
(Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 80. ^ R. J. Stewart, Where is St.
George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong (1976). ^ B. Forbes, Make Merry in
Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer's Plays & Celebrations
in the English Folk Tradition (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2009), p. 5. ^ J.
Harrowven, The origins of rhymes, songs and sayings (Kaye & Ward, 1977), p.
92. External links[edit] Children's literature portal Death and Burial of Poor
Cock Robin, by H. L. Stephens, from Project Gutenberg Death and Burial of Poor
Cock Robin From the Collections at the Library of Congress Categories: Robert
Walpole1744 songsFictional passerine birdsEnglish nursery rhymesSongwriter
unknownEnglish folk songsEnglish children's songsTraditional children's
songsSongs about birdsSongs about deathMurder balladsThe train from Oakland to
Berkeley.Grice's aunt once visited him, and he picked her up at the Oakland
Railway Station. On p. 74, Grice in terms of his aunt, mentions for the
first time ‘premise’ and ‘conclusion.’On same p. for the record he uses
‘quality’ for affirmative, negative or infinite. On p. 74 he uses for the first
time, with a point, the expression ‘conditional’ as attached to ‘if.’Oddly on
the first line of p. 75, he uses ‘material conditional,’ which almost nobody
does – except for a blue-collared practitioner of the sciences. ‘Material’ was
first introduced by blue-collared Whitehead and Russell, practictioners of the
sciences. They used ‘material’ as applied to ‘implication,’ to distinguish it,
oddly, and unclassily, from ‘formal’ implication. It is only then he quotes
Wilson verbatim in quotes“The question whether so and so is a case of a question
whether such and such” This actually influenced Collingwood, and Grice is
trying to tutor Strawson here once more!For the
logic of question and
answer has roots in the very philosophy that it was ... is John Cook Wilson,
whose Statement
and Inference can be regarded as the STATEMENT AND ITS
RELATION TO THINKING AND APREHENSIOTHE DISTINCTION OF SUBJECT AND PREDICATE IN
LOGIC AND GRAMMAR The influence of Strawson on Cook Wilson.“The building is the
Bodleian.”As answer to“What is that building?”“Which building is the
Bodleian”If the proposition is answer to first question, ‘that building’ is the
subject, if the proposition is answer to second question, ‘the bodleian’ is the
subject. Cf. “The exhibition was not visited by a bald king – of France, as it doesn’t
happen.SUBJECT AS TOPICPREDICATE AS COMMENT.Cf. Grice, “The dog is a shaggy
thig”What is shaggy?What is the dog?THIS DOG – Subject – TopicTHAT SHAGGY THING
– Subject – occasionally, but usually Predicate, Comment.In fact, Wilson bases
on StoutI am hungryWho is hungry?: subject IIs there anything amiss with you?
‘hungry’ is the subjectAre you really hungry? ‘am’ is the subject.Grice used to
be a neo-Stoutian before he turned a neo-Prichardian so he knew. But perhaps
Grice thought better of Cook Wilson. More of a philosopher. Stout seemed to
have been seen as a blue-collared practioner of the SCIENCE of psychology, not
philosophical psychology! Cf. Leicester-born B. Mayo, e: Magdalen, Lit. Hum.
(Philosophy) under? on ‘if’ and Cook Wilson in Analysis.Other example by
Wilson:“Glass is elastic.”Grice is motivated to defend Cook Wilson because
Chomsky was criticizing him (via a student who had been at Oxford). [S]uppose
instruction was being given in the properties of glass, and the instructor said
‘glass is elastic’, it would be natural to say that what was being talkedabout
and thought about was ‘glass’, and that what was said of it was that it was
elastic. Thus glass would be the subject and that it is elastic would be the
predicate. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1:117f.) What Cook Wilson discusses
here is a categorical sentence. The next two quotes are concerned with an
identificational sentence. [I]n the statement ‘glass is elastic’, if the matter
of inquiry was elasticity and the question was what substances possessed the
property of elasticity, glass, in accordance with the principle of the
definition, would no longer be subject, and the kind of stress which fell upon
‘elastic’ when glass was the subject, would now be transferred to ‘glass’. [. .
.] Thus the same form of words should be analyzed differently according as the
words are the answer to one question or another. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol.
1:119f.) When the stress falls upon ‘glass’, in ‘glass is elastic’, there is no
word in the sentence which denotes the actual subject elasticity; the word
‘elastic’ refers to what is already known of the subject, and glass, which has
the stress, is the only word which refers to the supposed new fact in the
nature of elasticity, that it is found in glass. Thus, according to the
proposed formula, ‘glass’ would have to be the predicate. [. . .] Introduction
and overview But the ordinary analysis would never admit that ‘glass’ was the
predicate in the given sentence and elasticity the subject. (Cook Wilson
1926/1969, Vol. 1:121)H. P. Grice knew that P. F. Strawson knew of J. C.
Wilson on “That building is the
Bodleian” via Sellars’s criticism.There is a strong
suggestion in Sellars' paper that I would have done
better if I had stuck to Cook Wilson. This suggestion I want equally strongly
to repudiate. Certainly Cook Wilson draws
attention to an interesting difference in ways in which items
may appear in discourse. It may be roughly expressed as follows.
When we say Glass is elastic we may be talking about glass or we
may be talking about elasticity (and we may, in the relevant sense of
'about' be doing neither). We are talking about glass if we are citing
elasticity as one of the properties of glass, we
are talking about elasticity if we are citing
glass as one of the substances which are elastic. Similarly
when we say Socrates is wise, we may be citing Socrates as an
instance of wisdom or wisdom as one of the proper- ties
of Socrates. And of course we may be doing
neither but, e.g., just imparting miscellaneous
information. Now how, if at all, could this
difference help me with my question? Would it help at all, for example,
if it were plausible (which it is not) to say that we were
inevitably more interested in determining what properties a given particular
had,than in determining what particular had a given property? Wouldn't
this at least suggest that particulars were the natural subjects, in the sense
of subjects of &erest? Let me answer this
question by the reminder that what I have to do
is to establish a connexion between some formal linguistic
difference and a category difference; and a
formal linguistic difference is one which logic can take cognizance
of, in abstraction from pragmatic considerations, like the direction
of interest. Such a formal ditference exists in the
difference between appearing in discourse directly designated and
appearing in discourse under the cloak of
quantification. ““But the difference in the use of
unquantified statements to which Cook Wilson draws attention is not a
formal difference at all.”Both glass and elasticity, Socrates and wisdom
appear named in such statements, whichever, in Cook
Wilson's sense, we are talking about. An appeal
to pragmatic considerations is, certainly, an essential
part of my own account at a certain point:
but this is the point at which such considerations are in- voked to
explain why a certain formal difference should be particularly
closely linked, in common speech, with a certain category difference. The
difference of which Cook Wilson speaks is, then, though
interesting in itself, irrelevant to my question. Cook Wilson is, and I am not,
concerned with what Sellars calls dialectical
distinctions.” On p.76 Grice mentions for the
first time the “ROLE” of if in an indefinite series of ‘interrogative
subordination.”For Cook Wilson,as Price knew (he quotes him in Belief),
the function of ‘if’ is to LINK TWO QUESTIONS. You’re the cream in my coffee as
‘absurd’ if literally (p. 83). STATEMENT In
this entry we will explore how Grice sees the ‘implicaturum’ that he regards as
‘conversational’ as applied to the emissor and in reference to the Graeco-Roman
classical tradition. Wht is implicated may not be the result of any maxim, and
yet not conventional – depending on a feature of context. But nothing like a
maxim – Strawson Wiggins p. 523. Only a CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURUM is the
result of a CONVERSATIONAL MAXIM and the principle of conversational
helpfulness. In a ‘one-off’ predicament, there may be an ‘implicaturum’ that
springs from the interaction itself. If E draws a skull, he communicates that
there is danger. If addressee runs away, this is not part of the implicaturum.
This Grice considers in “Meaning.” “What is meant” should cover the immediate
effect, and not any effect that transpires out of the addressee’s own will. Cf.
Patton on Kripke. One thief to another: “The cops are coming!” The expressiom
“IMPLICATION” is figures, qua entry, in a philosophical dictionary that Grice
consulted at Oxford. In the vernacular, there are two prominent relata:
entailment and implicaturum, the FRENCH have their “implication.” When it comes
to the Germans, it’s more of a trick. There’s the “nachsichziehen,” the
“zurfolgehaben,” the “Folge(-rung),” the “Schluß,” the “Konsequenz,” and of
course the “Implikation” and the “Implikatur,” inter alia. In Grecian, which Grice learned at Clifton, we
have the “sumpeplegmenon,” or “συμπεπλεγμένον,” if you must, i. e. the
“sum-peplegmenon,” but there’s also the “sumperasma,” or “συμπέϱασμα,” if you
must, “sum-perasma;” and then there’s the “sunêmmenon,” or “συνημμένον,” “sun-emmenon,”
not to mention (then why does Grice?) the “akolouthia,” or “ἀϰολουθία,” if you
must, “akolouthia,” and the “antakolouthia,” ἀνταϰολουθία,” “ana-kolouthia.”
Trust clever Cicero to regard anything ‘Grecian’ as not displaying enough
gravitas, and thus rendering everything into Roman. There’s the “illatio,” from
‘in-fero.’ The Romans adopted two different roots for this, and saw them as
having the same ‘sense’ – cf. referro, relatum, proferro, prolatum; and then
there’s the “inferentia,”– in-fero; and then there’s the “consequentia,” --
con-sequentia. The seq- root is present in ‘sequitur,’ non sequitur. The ‘con-‘
is transliterating Greek ‘syn-’ in the three expressions with ‘syn’:
sympleplegmenon, symperasma, and synemmenon. The Germans, avoiding the
Latinate, have a ‘follow’ root: in “Folge,” “Folgerung,” and the verb
“zur-folge-haben. And perhaps ‘implicatio,’
which is the root Grice is playing with. In Italian and French it
underwent changes, making ‘to imply’ a doublet with Grice’s ‘to implicate’ (the
form already present, “She was implicated in the crime.”). The strict opposite
is ‘ex-plicatio,’ as in ‘explicate.’ ‘implico’ gives both ‘implicaturum’ and
‘implicitum.’ Consequently, ‘explico’ gives both ‘explicatum’ and ‘explicitum.’
In English Grice often uses ‘impicit,’ and ‘explicit,’ as they relate to communication,
as his ‘implicaturum’ does. His ‘implicaturum’ has more to do with the contrast
with what is ‘explicit’ than with ‘what follows’ from a premise. Although in
his formulation, both readings are valid: “by uttering x, implicitly conveying
that q, the emissor CONVERSATIONALY implicates that p’ if he has explicitly
conveyed that p, and ‘q’ is what is required to ‘rationalise’ his
conversational behavioiur. In terms of the emissor, the distinction is between
what the emissor has explicitly conveyed and what he has conversationally
implicated. This in turn contrasts what some philosophers refer metabolically
as an ‘expression,’ the ‘x’ ‘implying’ that p – Grice does not bother with this
because, as Strawson and Wiggins point out, while an emissor cannot be true,
it’s only what he has either explicitly or implicitly conveyed that can be
true. As Austin says, it’s always a FIELD where you do the linguistic botany.
So, you’ll have to vide and explore: ANALOGY, PROPOSITION, SENSE, SUPPOSITION,
and TRUTH. Implication denotes a relation between propositions and statements
such that, from the truth-value of the protasis or antecedent (true or false),
one can derive the truth of the apodosis or consequent. More broadly, we can
say that one idea ‘implies’ another if the first idea cannot be thought without
the second one -- RT: Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la
philosophie. Common usage makes no strict differentiation between “to imply,”
“to infer,” and “to lead to.” Against Dorothy Parker. She noted that those of
her friends who used ‘imply’ for ‘infer’ were not invited at the Algonquin. The
verb “to infer,” (from Latin, ‘infero,’ that gives both ‘inferentia,’
inference, and ‘illatio,’ ‘illatum’) meaning “to draw a consequence, to deduce”
(a use dating to 1372), and the noun “inference,” meaning “consequence” (from
1606), do not on the face of it seem to be manifestly different from “to imply”
and “implication.” But in Oxonian usage, Dodgson avoided a confusion. “There
are two ways of confusing ‘imply’ with ‘infer’: to use ‘imply’ to mean ‘infer,’
and vice versa. Alice usually does the latter; the Dodo the former.” Indeed,
nothing originally distinguishes “implication” as Lalande defines it — “a
relation by which one thing ‘implies’ another”— from “inference” as it is
defined in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1765): “An operation by which
one ACCEPTS (to use a Griceism) a proposition because of its connection to
other propositions held to be true.” The same phenomenon can be seen in the
German language, in which the terms corresponding to “implication,” “Nach-sich-ziehen,”
“Zur-folge-haben,” “inference,” “Schluß”-“Folgerung,” “Schluß,” “to infer,”
“schließen,” “consequence,” “Folge” “-rung,” “Schluß,” “Konsequenz,”
“reasoning,” “”Schluß-“ “Folgerung,” and “to reason,” “schließen,” “Schluß-folger-ung-en
ziehen,” intersect or overlap to a large extent. In the French language, the
expression “impliquer” reveals several characteristics that the expression does
not seem to share with “to infer” or “to lead to.” First of all, “impliquer” is
originally (1663) connected to the notion of contradiction, as shown in the use
of impliquer in “impliquer contradiction,” in the sense of “to be
contradictory.” The connection between ‘impliquer’ and ‘contradiction’ does
not, however, explain how “impliquer” has passed into its most commonly
accepted meaning — “implicitly entail” — viz. to lead to a consequence. Indeed,
the two usages (“impliquer” connected with contradiction” and otherwise)
constantly interfere with one another, which certainly poses a number of
difficult problems. An analogous phenomenon can be found in the case of
“import,” commonly given used as “MEAN” or “imply,” but often wavering instead,
in certain cases, between “ENTAIL” and “imply.” In French, the noun “import” itself
is generally left as it I (“import existentiel,” v. SENSE, Box 4, and cf.
that’s unimportant, meaningless). “Importer,”
as used by Rabelais, 1536, “to necessitate, to entail,” forms via It.“importare,” as used by Dante), from the
Fr. “emporter,” “to entail, to have as a consequence,” dropped out of usage,
and was brought back through Engl. “import.” The nature of the connection
between the two primary usages of L. ‘implicare,’ It. ‘implicare,’ and Fr.
‘impliquer,’ “to entail IMPLICITitly” and “to lead to a consequence,”
nonetheless remains obscure, but not to a Griceian, or Grecian. Another
difficulty is understanding how the transition occurs from Fr. “impliquer,” “to
lead to a consequence,” to “implication,” “a logical relation in which one
statement necessarily supposes another one,” and how we can determine what in
this precise case distinguishes “implication” from “PRAE-suppositio.” We
therefore need to be attentive to what is implicit in Fr. “impliquer” and
“implication,” to the dimension of Fr. “pli,” a pleat or fold, of Fr. “re-pli,”
folding back, and of the Fr. “pliure,” folding, in order to separate out
“imply,” “infer,” “lead to,” or “implication,” “inference,” “consequence”—which
requires us to go back to Latin, and especially to medieval Latin. Once we
clarify the relationship between the usage of “implication” and the medieval
usage of “implicatio,” we will be able to examine certain derivations (as in
Sidonius’s ‘implicatura,” and H. P. Grice’s “implicaturum,” after
‘temperature,’ from ‘temperare,’) or substitutes (“entailment”) of terms
related to the generic field (for linguistic botanising) of “implicatio,”
assuming that it is difficulties with the concept of implication (e. g., the
‘paradoxes,’ true but misleading, of material versus formal implication –
‘paradox of implication’ first used by Johnson 1921) that have given rise to
this or that newly coined expression corresponding to this or that original
attempt. This whole set of difficulties certainly becomes clearer as we leave
Roman and go further upstream to Grecian, using the same vocabulary of
implication, through the conflation of several heterogeneous gestures that come
from the systematics in Aristotle and the Stoics. The Roman Vocabulary of
Implication and the Implicatio has the necessary ‘gravitas,’ but Grice, being a
Grecian at heart, found it had ‘too much gravitas,’ hence his ‘implicaturum,’
“which is like the old Roman ‘implicare,’ but for fun!” A number of different
expressions in medieval Latin can express in a more or less equivalent manner
the relationship between propositions and statements such that, from the
truth-value of the antecedent (true or false), one can derive the truth-value
of the consequent. There is “illatio,” and of course “illatum,” which Varro
thought fell under ‘inferre.’ Then there’s the feminine noun, ‘inferentia,’
from the ‘participium praesens’ of ‘inferre,’ cf. ‘inferens’ and ‘ilatum.’
There is also ‘consequentia,’ which is a complex transliterating the Greek
‘syn-,’ in this case with ‘’sequentia,’ from the deponent verb. “I follow you.”
Peter Abelard (Petrus Abelardus, v. Abelardus) makes no distinction in using
the expression “consequentia” for the ‘propositio conditionalis,’ hypothetical.
Si est homo, est animal. If Grice is a man, Grice is an animal (Dialectica, 473
– Abelardus uses ‘Greek man,’ not Grice.’ His implicaturum is ‘if a Greek man
is a man, he is therefore also some sort of an animal’). But Abelardus also
uses the expression “inferentia” for ‘same old same old’ (cf. “Implicaturum
happens.”). Si non est iustus homo, est non iustus homo. Grice to Strawson on
the examiner having given him a second. “If it is not the case that your
examiner was a fair man, it follows thereby that your examiner was not a fair
man, if that helps.” (Dialectica., 414).
For some reason, which Grice found obscure, ‘illatio” appears “almost
always” in the context of commenting on Aristotle’s “Topics,” – “why people
found the topic commenting escapes me” -- aand denotes more specifically a
reasoning, or “argumentum,” in Boethius, allowing for a “consequentia” to be
drawn from a given place. So Abelardus distinguishes: “illatio a causa.” But
there is also “illatio a simili.” And there is “iillatio a pari.” And there is
“illatio a partibus.” “Con-sequentia” sometimes has a very generic usage, even
if not as generic as ‘sequentia.” “Consequentia est quaedam habitudo inter
antecedens et consequens,” “Logica modernorum,” 2.1:38 – Cfr. Grice on
Whitehead as a ‘modernist’! Grice draws his ‘habit’ from the scholastic
‘habitudo.’ Noe that ‘antededens’ and ‘consequens.’ The point is a tautological
formula, in terms of formation. Surely ‘consequentia’ relates to a
‘consequens,’ where the ‘consequens’ is the ‘participium praesens’ of the verb
from which ‘consequentia’ derives. It’s like deving ‘love’ by ‘to have a
beloved.’ “Consequentia” is in any case present, in some way, without the
intensifier ‘syn,’ which the Roman gravitas added to transliterate the Greek
‘syn,’ i. e. ‘cum.’ -- in the expression “sequitur” and in the expression
“con-sequitur,” literally, ‘to follow,’ ‘to ensue,’ ‘to result in’). Keenan
told Grice that this irritated him. “If there is an order between a premise and
a conclusion, I will stop using ‘follow,’ because that reverts the order. I’ll
use ‘… yields …’ and write that ‘p yields q.’” “Inferentia,” which is cognate
(in the Roman way of using this expression broadly) with ‘illatio,’ and
‘illatum,’ -- frequently appears, by contrast, and “for another Grecian
reason,” as Grice would put it -- in the context of the Aristotle’s “De
Interpretatione,” on which Grice lectures only with J. L. Austin (Grice
lectured with Strawson on “Categoriae,” only – but with Austin, from whom Grice
learned – Grice lectured on both “Categoriae’ AND “De Interpretatione.” -- whether it is as part of a commentarium on Apuleius’s
Isagoge and the Square of Oppositions (‘figura quadrata spectare”), in order to
explain this or that “law” underlying any of the four sides of the square. So,
between A and E we have ‘propositio opposita.’ Between A and I, and between E
and O, we have propositio sub-alterna. Between A and O, and between E and I, we
have propositio contradictoria. And between I and O, we have “propositio
sub-alterna.” -- Logica modernorum, 2.1:115. This was irritatingly explored by
P. F. Strawson and brought to H. P. Grice’s attention, who refused to accept
Strawson’s changes and restrictions of the ‘classical’ validities (or “laws”)
because Strawson felt that the ‘implication’ violated some ‘pragmatic rule,’
while still yielding a true statement. Then there’s the odd use of “inferentia”
to apply to the different ‘laws’ of ‘conversio’ -- from ‘convertire,’
converting one proposition into another (Logica modernorum 131–39). Nevertheless,
“inferentia” is used for the dyadic (or triadic, alla Peirce) relationship of ‘implicatio,’
which for some reason, the grave Romans were using for less entertaining
things, and not this or that expressions from the “implication” family, or
sub-field. Surprisingly, a philosopher
without a classical Graeco-Roman background could well be mislead into thinking
that “implicatio” and “implication” are disparate! A number of treatises,
usually written by monks – St. John’s, were Grice teaches, is a Cicercian
monastery -- explore the “implicits.” Such a “tractatus” is not called
‘logico-philosophicus,’ but a “tractatus implicitarum,” literally a treatise on
this or that ‘semantic’ property of the
proposition said to be an ‘implicaturum’ or an ‘implication,’ or ‘propositio re-lativa.’
This is Grice’s reference to the conversational category of ‘re-lation.’
“Re-latio” and “Il-latio” are surely cognate. The ‘referre’ is a bring back;
while the ‘inferre’ is the bring in. The propositio is not just ‘brought’
(latum, or lata) it is brought back. Proposition Q is brought back (relata) to
Proposition P. P and Q become ‘co-relative.’ This is the terminology behind the
idea of a ‘relative clause,’ or ‘oratio relativa.’ E.g. “Si Plato tutee
Socrates est, Socratos tutor Platonis est,” translated by Grice, “If Strawson was
my tutee, it didn’t show!”. Now, closer to Grice “implicitus,” with an “i”
following the ‘implic-‘ rather than the expected ‘a’ (implica), “implicita,”
and “implicitum,” is an alternative “participium passatum” from “im-plic-are,”
in Roman is used for “to be joined, mixed, enveloped.” implĭco (inpl- ), āvi,
ātum, or (twice in Cic., and freq. since the Aug. per.) ŭi, ĭtum (v. Neue,
Formenl. 2, 550 sq.), 1, v. a. in-plico, to fold into; hence, I.to infold,
involve, entangle, entwine, inwrap, envelop, encircle, embrace, clasp, grasp
(freq. and class.; cf.: irretio, impedio). I. Lit.: “involvulus in pampini
folio se,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 64: “ut tenax hedera huc et illuc Arborem
implicat errans,” Cat. 61, 35; cf. id. ib. 107 sq.: “et nunc huc inde huc
incertos implicat orbes,” Verg. A. 12, 743: “dextrae se parvus Iulus
Implicuit,” id. ib. 2, 724; cf.: “implicuit materno bracchia collo,” Ov. M. 1,
762: “implicuitque suos circum mea colla lacertos,” id. Am. 2, 18, 9:
“implicuitque comam laevā,” grasped, Verg. A. 2, 552: “sertis comas,” Tib. 3,
6, 64: “crinem auro,” Verg. A. 4, 148: “frondenti tempora ramo,” id. ib. 7,
136; cf. Ov. F. 5, 220: in parte inferiore hic implicabatur caput, Afran. ap.
Non. 123, 16 (implicare positum pro ornare, Non.): “aquila implicuit pedes
atque unguibus haesit,” Verg. A. 11, 752: “effusumque equitem super ipse
(equus) secutus Implicat,” id. ib. 10, 894: “congressi in proelia totas
Implicuere inter se acies,” id. ib. 11, 632: “implicare ac perturbare aciem,” Sall.
J. 59, 3: “(lues) ossibus implicat ignem,” Verg. A. 7, 355.—In part. perf.:
“quini erant ordines conjuncti inter se atque implicati,” Caes. B. G. 7, 73, 4:
“Canidia brevibus implicatura viperis Crines,” Hor. Epod. 5, 15: “folium implicaturum,”
Plin. 21, 17, 65, § 105: “intestinum implicaturum,” id. 11, 4, 3, § 9:
“impliciti laqueis,” Ov. A. A. 2, 580: “Cerberos implicitis angue minante
comis,” id. H. 9, 94: “implicitamque sinu absstulit,” id. A. A. 1, 561:
“impliciti Peleus rapit oscula nati,” held in his arms, Val. Fl. 1, 264. II.
Trop. A. In gen., to entangle, implicate, involve, envelop, engage: “di
immortales vim suam ... tum terrae cavernis includunt, tum hominum naturis
implicant,” Cic. Div. 1, 36, 79: “contrahendis negotiis implicari,” id. Off. 2,
11, 40: “alienis (rebus) nimis implicari molestum esse,” id. Lael. 13, 45:
“implicari aliquo certo genere cursuque vivendi,” id. Off. 1, 32, 117:
“implicari negotio,” id. Leg. 1, 3: “ipse te impedies, ipse tua defensione
implicabere,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 18, § 44; cf.: multis implicari erroribus, id.
Tusc. 4, 27, 58: “bello,” Verg. A. 11, 109: “eum primo incertis implicantes
responsis,” Liv. 27, 43, 3: “nisi forte implacabiles irae vestrae implicaverint
animos vestros,” perplexed, confounded, id. 40, 46, 6: “paucitas in partitione
servatur, si genera ipsa rerum ponuntur, neque permixte cum partibus
implicantur,” are mingled, mixed up, Cic. Inv. 1, 22, 32: ut omnibus copiis
conductis te implicet, ne ad me iter tibi expeditum sit, Pompei. ap. Cic. Att.
8, 12, D, 1: “tanti errores implicant temporum, ut nec qui consules nec quid
quoque anno actum sit digerere possis,” Liv. 2, 21, 4.—In part. perf.: “dum rei
publicae quaedam procuratio multis officiis implicaturum et constrictum
tenebat,” Cic. Ac. 1, 3, 11: “Deus nullis occupationibus est implicatus,” id.
N. D. 1, 19, 51; cf.: “implicatus molestis negotiis et operosis,” id. ib. 1,
20, 52: “animos dederit suis angoribus et molestiis implicatos,” id. Tusc. 5,
1, 3: “Agrippina morbo corporis implicatura,” Tac. A. 4, 53: “inconstantia tua
cum levitate, tum etiam perjurio implicatura,” Cic. Vatin. 1, 3; cf. id. Phil.
2, 32, 81: “intervalla, quibus implicatura atque permixta oratio est,” id. Or.
56, 187: “(voluptas) penitus in omni sensu implicatura insidet,” id. Leg. 1, 17,
47: “quae quatuor inter se colligata atque implicatura,” id. Off. 1, 5, 15:
“natura non tam propensus ad misericordiam quam implicatus ad severitatem
videbatur,” id. Rosc. Am. 30, 85; “and in the form implicitus, esp. with morbo
(in morbum): quies necessaria morbo implicitum exercitum tenuit,” Liv. 3, 2, 1;
7, 23, 2; 23, 40, 1: “ubi se quisque videbat Implicitum morbo,” Lucr. 6, 1232:
“graviore morbo implicitus,” Caes. B. C. 3, 18, 1; cf.: “implicitus in morbum,”
Nep. Ages. 8, 6; Liv. 23, 34, 11: “implicitus suspicionibus,” Plin. Ep. 3, 9,
19; cf.: “implicitus terrore,” Luc. 3, 432: “litibus implicitus,” Hor. A. P.
424: “implicitam sinu abstulit,” Ov. A. A. 1, 562: “(vinum) jam sanos
implicitos facit,” Cael. Aur. Acut. 3, 8, 87.— B. In partic., to attach closely,
connect intimately, to unite, join; in pass., to be intimately connected,
associated, or related: “(homo) profectus a caritate domesticorum ac suorum
serpat longius et se implicet primum civium, deinde mortalium omnium
societate,” Cic. Fin. 2, 14, 45: “omnes qui nostris familiaritatibus
implicantur,” id. Balb. 27, 60: “(L. Gellius) ita diu vixit, ut multarum
aetatum oratoribus implicaretur,” id. Brut. 47, 174: “quibus applicari
expediet, non implicari,” Sen. Ep. 105, 5.— In part. perf.: “aliquos habere
implicatos consuetudine et benevolentia,” Cic. Fam. 6, 12, 2: “implicatus
amicitiis,” id. Att. 1, 19, 8: “familiaritate,” id. Pis. 29, 70: “implicati
ultro et citro vel usu diuturno vel etiam officiis,” id. Lael. 22, 85. —Hence,
1. implĭcātus (inpl- ), a, um, P. a., entangled, perplexed, confused,
intricate: “nec in Torquati sermone quicquam implicaturum aut tortuosum fuit,”
Cic. Fin. 3, 1, 3: “reliquae (partes orationis) sunt magnae, implicaturae,
variae, graves, etc.,” id. de Or. 3, 14, 52: vox rauca et implicatura, Sen.
Apocol. med. — Comp.: “implicatior ad loquendum,” Amm. 26, 6, 18. — Sup.:
“obscurissima et implicatissima quaestio,” Gell. 6, 2, 15: “ista tortuosissima
et implicatissima nodositas,” Aug. Conf. 2, 10 init.— 2. im-plĭcĭtē (inpl- ),
adv., intricately (rare): “non implicite et abscondite, sed patentius et
expeditius,” Cic. Inv. 2, 23, 69. -- “Implicare” adds to these usages the idea
of an unforeseen difficulty, i. e. a hint of “impedire,” and even of deceit, i.
e. a hint of “fallere.” Why imply what you can exply? Cf. subreptitious. subreption (n.)"act
of obtaining a favor by fraudulent suppression of facts," c. 1600, from
Latin subreptionem (nominative subreptio),
noun of action from past-participle stem of subripere, surripere (see surreptitious).
Related: Subreptitious.
surreptitious (adj.)mid-15c., from Latin surrepticius "stolen,
furtive, clandestine," from surreptus, past participle
of surripere "seize
secretly, take away, steal, plagiarize," from assimilated form of sub "from
under" (hence, "secretly;" see sub-)
+ rapere "to
snatch" (see rapid).
Related: Surreptitiously.
The source of the philosophers’s usage of ‘implicare’ is a passage from
Aristotle’s “De Int.” on the contrariety of proposition A and E (14.23b25–27),
in which “implicita” (that sould be ‘com-plicita,’ and ‘the emissor complicates
that p”) renders Gk. “sum-pepleg-menê,” “συμ-πεπλεγμένη,” f. “sum-plek-ein,”
“συμ-πλέϰein,” “to bind together,” as in ‘com-plicatio,’ complication, and
Sidonius’s ‘complicature,’ and Grice’s ‘complicature,’ as in ‘temperature,’
from ‘temperare.’ “One problem with P. F. Strawson’s exegesis of J. L. Austin
is the complicature is brings.” This is from the same family or field as “sum-plokê,”
“συμ-πλοϰή,” which Plato (Pol. 278b; Soph. 262c) uses for the ‘second
articulation,’ the “com-bination” of sounds (phone) that make up a word (logos),
and, more philosophically interesting, for ‘praedicatio,’ viz., the
interrelation within a ‘logos’ or ‘oratio’ of a noun, or onoma or nomen, as in
“the dog,” and a verb, or rhema, or verbum, -- as in ‘shaggisising’ -- that
makes up a propositional complex, as “The dog is shaggy,” or “The dog
shaggisises.” (H. P. Grice, “Verbing from adjectiving.”). In De Int. 23b25-27,
referring to the contrariety of A and O, Aristotle, “let’s grant it” – as Grice
puts it – “is hardly clear.” Aristotle writes: “hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon
SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin.” “Kai gar hoti ouk agathon anagkê isôs hupolambanein ton
auton.”“ἡ δὲ τοῦ ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν συμπεπλεγμένη ἐστίν.”“ϰαὶ γὰϱ ὅτι οὐϰ ἀγαθὸν
ἀνάγϰη ἴσως ὑπολαμϐάνειν τὸν αὐτόν.” Back in Rome, Boethius thought of bring
some gravitas to this. “Illa vero quae est,” Boethius goes,” Quoniam malum est
quod est bonum, IMPLICATURA est. Et enim: “Quoniam non bonum est.” necesse est
idem ipsum opinari (repr. in Aristoteles latinus, 2.1–2.4–6. In a later vulgar
Romance, we have J. Tricot). “Quant au jugement, “Le bon est mal” ce n’est en
réalité qu’une COMBINAISON de jugements, cars sans doute est-il nécessaire de
sous-entendre en même temps “le bon n’est pas le bon.” Cf. Mill on ‘sous-entendu’
of conversation. This was discussed by H. P. Grice in a tutorial with
Reading-born English philosopher J. L. Ackrill at St. John’s. With the help of H. P. Grice, J. L. Ackrill
tries to render Boethius into the vernacular (just to please Austin) as
follows. “Hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin, kai gar hoti
OUK agathon ANAGKê isôs hupo-lambanein ton auton” “Illa vero quae est, ‘Quoniam
malum est quod est bonum,’ IMPLICATURA est, et enim, ‘Quoniam non bonum est,’ necesse
est idem ipsum OPINARI. In the vernacular: “The belief expressed by the
proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ is COM-PLICATED or com-plex, for the same person
MUST, perhaps, suppose also the proposition, ‘The good it is not good.’” Aristotle
goes on, “For what kind of utterance is “The good is not good,” or as they say
in Sparta, “The good is no good”? Surely otiose. “The good” is a Platonic
ideal, a universal, separate from this or that good thing. So surely, ‘the
good,’ qua idea ain’t good in the sense that playing cricket is good. But
playing cricket is NOT “THE” good: philosophising is.” H. P. Grice found
Boethius’s commentary “perfectly elucidatory,” but Ackrill was perplexed, and
Grice intended Ackrill’s perplexity to go ‘unnoticed’ (“He is trying to
communicate his perplexity, but I keep ignoring it.” For Ackrill was
surreptitiously trying to ‘correct’ his tutor. Aristotle, Acrkill thought, is
wishing to define the ‘contrariety’ between two statements or opinions, or not
to use a metalanguage second order, that what is expressed by ‘The good is bad’
is a contrarium of what is expressed by ‘The good is no good.’” Aristotle starts,
surely, from a principle. The principle states that a maximally false
proposition, set in opposition to a maximally true proposition (such as “The
good is good”), deserves the name “contraria” – and ‘contrarium’ to what is
expressed by it. In a second phase, Aristotle then tries to demonstrate, in a
succession of this or that stage, that ‘The good is good’ understood as a
propositio universalis dedicativa – for all x, if x is (the) good, x is good (To
agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum est bonum”) is a maximally true proposition.” And
the reason for this is that “To agathon agathon estin,” or “Bonum bonum est,”
applies to the essence (essentia) of “good,” and ‘predicates’ “the same of the
same,” tautologically. Now consider Aristotle’s other proposition “The good is
the not-bad,” the correlative E form, For all x, if x is good, x is not bad. This
does not do. This is not a maximally true proposition. Unlike “The good is
good,” The good is not bad” does not apply to the essence of ‘the good,’ and it
does not predicate ‘the same of the same’ tautologically. Rather, ‘The good is
not bad,’ unless you bring one of those ‘meaning postulates’ that Grice rightly
defends against Quine in “In defense of a dogma,” – in this case, (x)(Bx iff
~Gx) – we stipulate something ‘bad’ if it ain’t good -- is only true notably
NOT by virtue of a necessary logical implication, but, to echo my tutor, by implicaturum,
viz. by accident, and not by essence (or essential) involved in the ‘sense’ of
either ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or ‘not’ for that matter. Surely Aristotle equivocates slightly
when he convinced Grice that an allegedly maximally false proposition (‘the
good is bad’) entails or yields the negation of the same attribute, viz., ‘The
good is not good,’ or more correctly, ‘It is not the case that the good is
good,’ for this is axiomatically contradictory, or tautologically and
necessarily false without appeal to any meaning postulate. For any predicate,
Fx and ~Fx. The question then is one of knowing whether ‘The good is bad’
deserves to be called the contrary proposition (propositio contraria) of ‘The
good is good.’ Aristotle notes that the proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ “To
agathon kakon estin,” “Bonum malum est,” is NOT the maximally false proposition
opposed to the maximally true, tautological, and empty, proposition, “The good
is good,” ‘To agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum bonum est.” “Indeed, “the good is
bad” is sumpeplegmenê, or COMPLICATA. What the emissor means is a complicatum,
or as Grice preferred, a ‘complicature. Grice’s complicature (roughly rendered
as ‘complification’) condenses all of the moments of the transition from the
simple idea of a container (cum-tainer) to the “modern” ideas of implication,
Grice’s implicaturum, and prae-suppositio. The ‘propositio complicate,’ is, as
Boethius puts it, duplex, or equivocal. The proposition has a double meaning – one explicit, the
other implicit. “A ‘propositio complicata’ contains within itself [“continet in
se, intra se”]: bonum non est.” Boethius then goes rightly to conclude (or
infer), or stipulate, that only a “simplex” proposition, not a propositio
complicata, involving some ‘relative clause,’ can be said to be contrary to
another -- Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri hermêneais, 219. Boethius’s
exegesis thesis is faithful to Aristotle. For Aristotle, nothing like “the good
is not bad,” but only the tautologically false “the good is not good,” or it is
not the case that the good is good, (to agathon agathon esti, bonum bonum est),
a propositio simplex, and not a propositio complicate, is the opposite (oppositum,
-- as per the ‘figura quadrata’ of ‘oppoista’ -- of “the good is good,” another
propositio simplex. Boethius’s analysis of “the good is bad,” a proposition
that Boethius calls ‘propositio complicate or ‘propositio implicita’ are
manifestly NOT the same as Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, the “doxa hoti kakon to
agathon [δόξα ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθόν],” the opinion according to which the good is
bad, is only ‘contrary’ to “the good is good” to the extent that it “con-tains”
(in Boethius’s jargon) the tautologically false ‘The good is not good.’ For
Boethius, ‘The good is bad’ is contrary to ‘the good is good’ is to the extent
that ‘the good is bad’ contains, implicitly, the belief which Boethius
expresses as ‘Bonum NON est —“ cf. Grice on ‘love that never told can be” –
Featuring “it is not the case that,” the proposition ‘bonum non est’ is a
remarkably complicated expression in Latin, a proposition complicata indeed.
‘Bonum non est’ can mean, in the vernacular, “the good is not.” “Bonum non est”
can only be rendered as “there is nothing good.’ “Bonum non est’ may also be
rendered, when expanded with a repeated property, the tautologically false ‘The
good is not good” (Bonum non bonum est). Strangely, Abelard goes in the same
direction as Aristotle, contra Boethius. “The good is bad” (Bonum malum est) is “implicit” (propositio implicita or
complicate) with respect to the tautologically false ‘Bonum bonum non est’ “the
good is not good.”Abelardus, having read Grice – vide Strawson, “The influence
of Grice on Abelardus” -- explains clearly the meaning of “propositio
implicita”: “IMPLYING implicitly ‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good’
within itself, and in a certain wa containing it [“IM-PLICANS eam in se, et
quodammodo continens.” Glossa super Periermeneias, 99–100. But Abelard expands
on Aristotle. “Whoever thinks ‘bonum malum est,’ ‘the good is bad’ also thinks
‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good,’ whereas the reverse does not
hold true, i. e. it is not the case that whoever thinks the tautologically
false ‘the good is not good’ (“bonum bonum non est”) also think ‘the good is
bad’ (‘bonum malum est’). He may refuse to even ‘pronounce’ ‘malum’ (‘malum
malum est’) -- “sed non convertitur.” Abelard’s explanation is decisive for the
natural history of Grice’s implication. One can certainly express in terms of
“implication” what Abelard expresses when he notes the non-reciprocity or
non-convertibility of the two propositions. ‘The good is bad,’ or ‘Bonum malum
est’ implies or presupposes the tautologically true “the good is not good;’It
is not the case that the tautologically false “the good is not good” (‘Bonum
bonum non est’) implies ridiculous “the good is bad.” Followers of Aristotle
inherit these difficulties. Boethius and
Abelard bequeath to posterity an interpretation of the passage in Aristotle’s
“De Interpretatione” according to which “bonum malum est” “the good is bad” can
only be considered the ‘propositio opposita’ of the tautologically true ‘bonum
bonum est’ (“the good is good”) insofar as, a ‘propositio implicita’ or
‘relativa’ or ‘complicata,’ it contains the ‘propositio contradictoria, viz.
‘the good is not good,’ the tautologically false ‘Bonum non bonum est,’ of the
tautologically true ‘Bonum bonum est’ “the good is good.” It is this meaning of
“to contain a contradiction” that, in a still rather obscure way, takes up this
analysis by specifying a usage of “impliquer.” The first attested use in French
of the verb “impliquer” is in 1377 in Oresme, in the syntagm “impliquer
contradiction” (RT: DHLF, 1793). These same texts give rise to another
analysis. A propositio implicita or pregnant, or complicate, is a proposition
that “implies,” that is, that in fact contains two propositions, one
principalis, and the other relative, each a ‘propositio explicita,’ and that
are equivalent or equipollent to the ‘propositio complicata’ when paraphrased.
Consider. “Homo qui est albus est animal quod currit,” “A man who is white is
an animal who runs.” This ‘propositio complicate contains the the propositio
implicita, “homo est albus” (“a man is white”) and the propositio implicita,
“animal currit” (“an animal runs.”). Only
by “exposing” or “resolving” (via ex-positio, or via re-solutio) such an ‘propositio
complicata’ can one assign it a truth-value. “Omnis proposition implicita habet
duas propositiones explicitas.” “A proposition implicita “P-im” has (at least)
a proposition implicita P-im-1 and a different proposition implicita P-im-2.”
“Verbi gratia.” “Socrates est id quod est homo.” “Haec propositio IMplicita
aequivalet huic copulativae constanti ex duis propositionis explicitis. Socrates
est aliquid est illud est homo. Haec proposition est vera, quare et propositio
implicita vera. Every “implicit proposition” has two explicit propositions.”
“Socrates is something (aliquid) which is a man.” This implicit proposition,
“Socrates is something shich is a man,” is equivalent or equipoent to the
following conjunctive proposition made up of two now EXplicit propositions, to
wit, “Socrates is something,” and “That something is a man.” This latter
conjunctive proposition of the two explicit propositions is true. Therefore,
the “implicit” proposition is also true” (Tractatus implicitarum, in Giusberti –
Materiale per studum, 43). The two “contained” propositions are usually relative
propositions. Each is called an ‘implicatio.’ ‘Implicatio’ (rather than
‘implicitio’) becomes shorthand for “PROPOSITIO implicita.” An ‘implicatio’
becomes one type of ‘propositio
exponibilis,’ i. e. a proposition that is to be “exposed” or paraphrased for its
form or structure to be understood. In
the treatises of Terminist logic, one chapter is by custom devoted to the
phenomenon of “restrictio,” viz. a restriction in the denotation or the
suppositio of the noun (v. SUPPOSITION). A relative expression (an implication),
along with others, has a restrictive function (viz., “officium implicandi”),
just like a sub-propositional expression like an adjective or a participle.
Consider. “A man, Grice, who argues,
runs to the second base.” “Man,” because
of the relative expression or clause “who runs,” is restricted to denoting the
present time (it is not Grice, who argues NOW but ran YESTERDAY). Moreover there
is an equivalence or equipolence between the relative expression “qui currit”
and the present participle “currens.” Running Grice argues. Grice who runs
argues. Summe metenses, Logica modernorum, 2.1:464. In the case in which a
relative expression is restrictive, its function is to “leave something that is
constant,” “aliquid pro constanti relinquere,” viz., to produce a pre-assertion
that conditions the truth of the main super-ordinate assertion without being
its primary object or topic or signification or intentio. “Implicare est pro
constanti et involute aliquid significare.” “Ut cum dicitur homo qui est albus
currit.” “Pro constanti” dico, quia
praeter hoc quod assertitur ibi cursus de homine, aliquid datur intelligi,
scilicet hominem album; “involute” dico quia praeter hoc quod ibi proprie et
principaliter significatur hominem currere, aliquid intus intelligitur,
scilicet hominem esse album. Per hoc patet quod implicare est intus plicare. Id
enim quod intus “plicamus” sive “ponimus,” pro constanti relinquimus. Unde
implicare nil aliud est quam subiectum sub aliqua dispositione pro constanti
relinquere et de illo sic disposito aliquid affirmare. Ackrill translates to
Grice: “To imply” is to signify something by stating it as constant, and in a pretty
‘hidden’ manner – “involute.” When I state that the man
runs, I state, stating it as constant, because, beyond (“praeter”) the main
supra-ordinate assertion or proposition that predicates the running of the man,
my addressee is given to understand something else (“aliquid intus
intelligitur”), viz. that the man is white; This is communicated in a hidden
manner (“involute”) because, beyond (“praeter”) what is communicated (“significatur”)
primarily, principally (“principaliter”) properly (“proprie”), literally, and
explicitly, viz. that the man is running, we are given to understand something
else (“aliquid intus intelligutur”) within (“intus”), viz. that the man is white. It follows from this that implicare is
nothing other than what the form of the expression literally conveys, intus
plicare (“folded within”). What we fold
or state within, we leave as a constant.
It follows from this that “to imply” is nothing other than leaving
something as a constant in the subject (‘subjectum’), such that the subject (subjectum,
‘homo qui est albus”) is under a certain disposition, and that it is only under
this disposition that something about the subjectum is affirmed” -- De
implicationibus, Nota, 100) For the record: while Giusberti (“Materiale per
studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally has the pretty
Griciean “precontenti.” This is a case of what the “Logique du Port-Royal”
describes as an “in-cidental” assertion. The situation is even more complex,
however, insofar as this operation only relates to one usage of a relative
proposition, viz. when the proposition is restrictive. A restriction can
sometimes be blocked, or cancelled, and the reinscriptions are then different
for a nonrestrictive and a restrictive
relative proposition. One such case of a blockage is that of “false
implication” (Johnson’s ‘paradox of ‘implicatio’) as in “a [or the] man who is
a donkey runs,” (but cf. the centaur, the man who is a horse, runs) where there
is a conflict (“repugnantia”) between what the determinate term itself denotes
(homo, man) and the determination (ansinus, donkey). The truth-values of a proposition
containing a relative clause or propositio thus varies according to whether it
is restrictive, and of composite meaning, as in “homo, qui est albus, currit”
(A man, who is white, runs), or non-restrictive, and of divided meaning, as in
“Homo currit qui est albus” (Rendered in the vernacular in the same way, the
Germanic languages not having the syntactic freedom the classical languages do:
A man, who is white, is running. When the relative is restrictive, as in “Homo,
qui est albus, curris”, the propositio implicits only produces one single
assertion, since the relative corresponds to a pre-assertion. Thus, it is the
equivalent, at the level of the underlying form, to a proposition conditionalis
or hypothetical. Only in the second case can there be a “resolution” of the proposition
implicita into the pair of this and that ‘propositio explicita, to wit, “homo
currit,” “homo est albus.”—and an equipolence
between the complex proposition implicita and the conjunction of the first
proposition explicita and the second proposition explicitta. Homo currit et
ille est albus. So it is only in this second case of proposition irrestrictiva that one can say that “Homo currit, qui est
albus implies “Homo currit,” and “Homo est albus” and therefore, “Homo qui est
albus currit.” The poor grave Romans are having trouble with Grecisms. The
Grecist vocabulary of implication is both disparate and systematic, in a
Griceian oxymoronic way. The grave Latin “implicare” covers and translates an
extremely varied Grecian field of expressions ready to be botanized, that bears
the mark of heterogeneous rather than systematic operations, whether one is
dealing Aristotle or the Stoics. The passage through grave Roman allows us to
understand retrospectively the connection in Aristotle’s jargon between the “implicatio”
of the “propositio implicita,” sum-pepleg-menê, as an interweaving or
interlacing, and conclusive or con-sequential implicatio, sumperasma, “συμπέϱασμα,”
or “sumpeperasmenon,” “συμπεπεϱασμένον,” “sumpeperasmenê,” “συμπεπεϱασμένη,” f.
perainein, “πεϱαίνein, “to limit,” which is the jargon Aristotle uses in the
Organon to denote the conclusion of a syllogism (Pr. Anal. 1.15.34a21–24). If
one designates as A the premise, tas protaseis, “τὰς πϱοτάσεις,” and as B the
con-clusion, “to sumperasma,” συμπέϱασμα.” Cf. the Germanic puns with
‘closure,’ etc. When translating
Aristotle’s definition of the syllogism at Prior Analytics 1.1.24b18–21, Tricot
chooses to render as the “con-sequence” Aristotle’s verb “sum-bainei,” “συμ-ϐαίνει,”
that which “goes with” the premise and results from it. A syllogism is a
discourse, “logos,” “λόγος,” in which, certain things being stated, something
other than what is stated necessarily results simply from the fact of what is
stated. Simply from the fact of what is stated, I mean that it is because of
this that the consequence is obtained, “legô de tôi tauta einai to dia tauta
sumbainei,” “λέγω δὲ τῷ ταῦτα εἶναι τὸ διὰ ταῦτα συμϐαίνει.” (Pr. Anal. 1.1,
24b18–21). To make the connection with “implication,” though, we also have to
take into account, as is most often the case, the Stoics’ own jargon. What the
Stoics call “sumpeplegmenon,” “συμπεπλεγμένον,” is a “conjunctive” proposition;
e. g. “It is daytime, and it is light” (it is true both that A and that B). The
conjunctive is a type of molecular proposition, along with the “conditional”
(sunêmmenon [συνημμένον] -- “If it is daytime, it is light”) and the
“subconditional” (para-sunêmmenon [παϱασυνημμένον]; “SINCE it is daytime, it is
light”), and the “disjunctive” (diezeugmenon [διεζευγμένον] -- “It is daytime, or it is night.” Diog. Laert.
7.71–72; cf. RT: Long and Sedley, A35, 2:209 and 1:208). One can see that there
is no ‘implicatio’ in the conjunctive, whereas there is one in the ‘sunêmmenon’
(“if p, q”), which constitutes the Stoic expression par excellence, as distinct
from the Aristotelian categoric syllogism.Indeed, it is around the propositio conditionalis
that the question and the vocabulary of ‘implicatio’ re-opens. The Aristotelian
sumbainein [συμϐαίνειν], which denotes the accidental nature of a result,
however clearly it has been demonstrated (and we should not forget that
sumbebêkos [συμϐεϐηϰός] denotes accident; see SUBJECT, I), is replaced by “akolouthein”
[ἀϰολουθεῖν] (from the copulative a- and keleuthos [ϰέλευθος], “path” [RT:
Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, s.v. ἀϰόλουθος]),
which denotes instead being accompanied by a consequent conformity. This
connector, i. e. the “if” (ei, si) indicates that the second proposition, the
con-sequens (“it is light”) follows (akolouthei [ἀϰολουθεῖ]) from the first
(“it is daytime”) (Diog. Laert, 7.71). Attempts, beginning with Philo or
Diodorus Cronus up to Grice and Strawson to determine the criteria of a “valid”
conditional (to hugies sunêmmenon [τὸ ὑγιὲς συνημμένον] offer, among other
possibilities, the notion of emphasis [ἔμφασις], which Long and Sedley
translate as “G. E. Moore’s entailment” and Brunschwig and Pellegrin as
“implication” (Sextus Empiricus, The Skeptic Way, in RT: Long and Sedley, The
Hellenistic Philosophers, 35B, 2:211 and 1:209), a term that is normally used
to refer to a reflected image and to the force, including rhetorical force, of
an impression. Elsewhere, this “emphasis” is explained in terms of dunamis [δύναμις],
of “virtual” content (“When we have the premise which results in a certain
conclusion, we also have this conclusion virtually [dunamei (δυνάμει)] in the
premise, even if it is not explicitly indicated [kan kat’ ekphoran mê legetai (ϰἂν
ϰατ̕ ἐϰφοϱὰν μὴ λέγεται)], Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians 8.229ff., D.
L. Blank, 49 = RT: Long and Sedley, G36 (4), 2:219 and 1:209)—where connecting
the different usages of “implication” creates new problems. One has to understand
that the type of implicatio represented by the proposition conditionalis
implies, in the double usage of “contains implicitly” and “has as its
consequence,” the entire Stoic system. It is a matter of to akolouthon en zôêi
[τὸ ἀϰόλουθον ἐν ζωῇ], “consequentiality in life,” or ‘rational life, as Grice
prefers, as Long and Sedley translate it (Stobeus 2.85.13 = RT: Long and Sedley,
59B, 2:356; Cicero prefers “congruere,” (congruential) De finibus 3.17 = RT:
Long and Sedley, 59D, 2:356). It is akolouthia [ἀϰολουθία] that refers to the
conduct con-sequent upon itself that is the conduct of the wise man, the chain
of causes defining will or fate, and finally the relationship that joins the
antecedent to the con-sequent in a true proposition. Goldschmidt, having cited
Bréhier (Le système stoïcien), puts the emphasis on antakolouthia [ἀνταϰολουθία],
a Stoic neologism that may be translated as “reciprocal” implicatio,” and that
refers specifically to the solidarity of virtues (antakolouthia tôn aretôn [ἀνταϰολουθία
τῶν ἀϱετῶν], Diog. Laert. 7.125; Goldschmidt, as a group that would be
encompassed by dialectical virtue, immobilizing akolouthia in the absolute
present of the wise man. “Implicatio” is, in the final analysis, from then on,
the most literal name of the Stoic system. Refs.: Aristotle. Anal. Pr.. ed. H. Tredennick, in Organon, Harvard; Goldschmidt, Le système
stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Paris: Vrin, Sextus Empiricus. Against the
Grammarians, ed. D. L. Blank. Oxford: Oxford. END OF INTERLUDE. Now for
“Implication”/“Implicaturum.” Implicatura was used by Sidonius in a letter
(that Grice found funny) and used by Grice in seminars on conversational
helpfulness at Oxford. Grice sets out the basis of a systematic approach to
communication, viz, concerning the relation between a proposition p and a
proposition q in a conversational context. The need is felt by Sidonius and
Grice for ‘implicaturum,’ tdistinct from “implication,” insofar as
“implication” is used for a relation between a proposition p and a proposition
q, whereas an “implicaturum” is a relation between this or that statement,
within a given context, that results from an EMISSOR having utterered an
utterance (thereby explicitly conveying that p) and thereby implicitly
conveying and implicating that q. Grice thought the distinction was ‘frequently
ignored by Austin,’ and Grice thought it solved a few problems, initially in G.
A. Paul’s neo-Wttigensteinian objections to Price’s causal theory of perception
(“The pillar box seems red to me; which does not surprise me, seeing that it is
red”). An “implication” is a relation
bearing on the truth or falsity of this or that proposition (e. g. “The pillar
box seems red” and, say, “The pillar box MAY NOT be red”) whereas an “implicaturum”
brings an extra meaning to this or that statement it governs (By uttering “The
pillar box seems red” thereby explicitly conveying that the pillar box seems
red, the emissor implicates in a cancellable way that the pillar box MAY NOT be
red.”). Whenever “implicaturum” is determined according to its context (as at
Collections, “Strawson has beautiful handwriting; a mark of his character. And
he learned quite a bit in spite of the not precisely angelic temperament of his
tutor Mabbott”) it enters the field of pragmatics, and therefore has to be
distinguished from a presupposition. Implicatio simpliciter is a relation
between two propositions, one of which is the consequence of the other (Quine’s
example: “My father is a bachelor; therefore, he is male”). An equivalent of “implication”
is “entailment,” as used by Moore. Now, Moore was being witty. ‘Entail’ is
derived from “tail” (Fr. taille; ME entaill or entailen = en + tail), and prior
to its logical use, the meaning of “entailment” is “restriction,” “tail” having
the sense of “limitation.” As Moore explains in his lecture: “An entailment is
a limitation on the transfer or handing down of a property or an inheritance.
*My* use of ‘entailment’ has two features in common with the Legalese that
Father used to use; to wit: the handing down of a property; and; the limitation
on one of the poles of this transfer. As I stipulate we should use “entailment”
(at Cambridge, but also at Oxford), a PROPERTY is transferred from the
antecedent to the con-sequent. And also, normally in semantics, some LIMITATION
(or restriction, or ‘stricting,’ or ‘relevancing’) on the antecedent is
stressed.” The mutation from the legalese to Moore’s usage explicitly occurs by
analogy on the basis of these two shared common elements. Now, Whitehead had
made a distinction between a material (involving a truth-value) implication and
formal (empty) implication. A material implication (“if,” symbolized by the
horseshoe “ ⊃,” because “it resembles an arrow,”
Whitehead said – “Some arrow!” was Russell’s response) is a Philonian
implication as defined semantically in terms of a truth-table by Philo of
Megara. “If p, q” is false only when the antecedent is true and the con-sequent
false. In terms of a formalization of communication, this has the flaw of
bringing with it a counter-intuitive feeling of ‘baffleness’ (cf. “The pillar
box seems red, because it is”), since a false proposition implies materially
any proposition: If the moon is made of green cheese, 2 + 2 = 4. This “ex falso
quodlibet sequitur” has a pedigreed history. For the Stoics and the Megarian
philosophers, “ex falso quodlibet sequitur” is what distinguishes Philonian
implication and Diodorean implication. It traverses the theory of consequence
and is ONE of the paradoxes of material implication that is perfectly summed up
in these two rules of Buridan: First, if P is false, Q follows from P; Second, if
P is true, P follows from Q (Bochenski, History of Formal Logic). A formal (empty)
implication (see Russell, Principles of Mathematics, 36–41) is a universal
conditional implication: Ɐx (Ax ⊃ Bx), for any x, if
Ax, then Bx. Different means of resolving the paradoxes of implication have
been proposed. All failed except Grice’s. An American, C. I. Lewis’s “strict”
implication (Lewis and Langford, Symbolic Logic) is defined as an implication
that is ‘reinforced’ such that it is impossible for the antecedent to be true
and the con-sequent false. Unfortunately, as Grice tells Lewis in a
correspondence, “your strict implication, I regret to prove, has the same
alleged flaw as the ‘material’ implication that your strict implication was
meant to improve on. (an impossible—viz., necessarily false—proposition strictly
implies any proposition). The relation of entailment introduced by Moore in
1923 is a relation that seems to avoid this or that paradox (but cf. Grice,
“Paradoxes of entailment, followed by paradoxes of implication – all
conversationally resolved”) by requiring a derivation of the antecedent from
the con-sequent. In this case, “If 2 + 2 = 5, 2 + 3 = 5” is false, since the
con-sequent is stipulated not be derivable from the antecedent. Occasionally,
one has to call upon the pair “entailment”/“implication” in order to
distinguish between an implication in qua material implication and an
implication in Moore’s usage (metalinguistic – the associated material
implication is a theorem), which is also sometimes called “relevant” if not
strictc implication (Anderson and Belnap, Entailment), to ensure that the
entire network of expressions is covered. Along with this first series of
expressions in which “entailment” and “implication” alternate with one another,
there is a second series of expressions that contrasts two kinds of “implicaturum,”
or ‘implicatura.’ “Implicaturum” (Fr. implicaturum, G. Implikatur) is formed
from “implicatio” and the suffix –ture, which expresses, as Grice knew since
his Clifton days, a ‘resultant aspect,’ ‘aspectum resultativus’ (as in
“signature”; cf. L. temperatura, from temperare). “Implicatio” may be thought as derived from
“to imply” (if not ‘employ’) and “implicaturum” may be thought as deriving from
“imply”’s doulet, “to implicate” (from L. “in-“ + “plicare,” from plex; cf. the
IE. plek), which has the same meaning. Some mistakenly see Grice’s “implicaturum”
as an extension and modification of the concept of presupposition, which
differs from ‘material’ implication in that the negation of the antecedent
implies the consequent (the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
presupposes the existence of a wife in both cases). An implicaturum escapes the
paradoxes of material implication from the outset. In fact, Grice, the ever
Oxonian, distinguishes “at least” two kinds of implicaturum, conventional and
non-conventional, the latter sub-divided into non-conventional
non-converastional, and non-conventional conversational. A non-conventional
non-conversational implicaturum may occur in a one-off predicament. A Conventional
implicaturum and a conventional implicaturum is practically equivalent,
Strawson wrongly thought, to presupposition prae-suppositum, since it refers to
the presuppositions attached by linguistic convention to a lexical item or
expression. E. g. “Mary EVEN loves
Peter” has a relation of conventional implicaturum to “Mary loves other
entities than Peter.” This is equivalent to: “ ‘Mary EVEN loves Peter’
presupposes ‘Mary loves other entities than Peter.’ With this kind of implicaturum,
we remain within the expression, and thus the semantic, field. A conventional implicaturum,
however, is surely different from a material implicatio. It does not concern
the truth-values. With conversational implicaturum, we are no longer dependent
on this or that emissum, but move into pragmatics (the area that covers the
relation between statements and contexts. Grice gives the following example:
If, in answer to A’s question about how C is getting on in his new job at a
bank, B utters, “Well, he likes his colleagues, and he hasn’t been to in prison
yet,” what B implicates by the proposition that it is not the case that C has
been to prison yet depends on the context. It compatible with two very different
contexts: one in which C, naïve as he is, is expected to be entrapped by
unscrupulous colleagues in some shady deal, or, more likely, C is well-known by
A and B to tend towards dishonesty (hence the initial question). References: Abelard,
Peter. Dialectica. Edited by L. M. De Rijk. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1956. 2nd
rev. ed., 1970. Glossae super Periermeneias. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello.
In TwelfthCentury Logic: Texts and Studies, vol. 2, Abelaerdiana inedita. Rome:
Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958. Anderson, Allan Ross, and Nuel Belnap.
Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1975. Aristotle. De interpretatione. English translation by
J. L. Ackrill: Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione. Notes by J. L.
Ackrill. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963. French translation by J. Tricot: Organon.
Paris: Vrin, 1966. Auroux, Sylvain, and Irène Rosier. “Les sources historiques
de la conception des deux types de relatives.” Langages 88 (1987): 9–29. Bochenski,
Joseph M. A History of Formal Logic. Translated by Ivo Thomas. New York:
Chelsea, 1961. Boethius. Aristoteles latinus. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello.
Paris: Descleé de Brouwer, 1965. Translation by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello: The
Latin Aristotle. Toronto: Hakkert, 1972. Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri
hermêneias. Edited by K. Meiser. Leipzig: Teubner, 1877. 2nd ed., 1880. De
Rijk, Lambertus Marie. Logica modernorum: A Contribution to the History of
Early Terminist Logic. 2 vols. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1962–67. “Some Notes on the Mediaeval Tract De
insolubilibus, with the Edition of a Tract Dating from the End of the
Twelfth-Century.” Vivarium 4 (1966): 100–103. Giusberti, Franco. Materials for
a Study on Twelfth-Century Scholasticism. Naples, It.: Bibliopolis, 1982.
Grice, H. P. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts,
edited by P. Cole and J. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press, 1975. (Also
in The Logic of Grammar, edited by D. Davidson and G. Harman, 64–74. Encino,
CA: Dickenson, 1975.) Lewis, Clarence Irving, and Cooper Harold Langford.
Symbolic Logic. New York: New York Century, 1932. Meggle, Georg. Grundbegriffe
der Kommunikation. 2nd ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. Meggle, Georg, and
Christian Plunze, eds. Saying, Meaning, Implicating. Leipzig: Leipziger
Universitätsverlag, 2003. Moore, G. E.. Philosophical Studies. London: Kegan
Paul, 1923. Rosier, I. “Relatifs et relatives dans les traits terministes des
XIIe et XIIIe siècles: (2) Propositions relatives (implicationes), distinction
entre restrictives et non restrictives.” Vivarium 24: 1 (1986): 1–21. Russell,
Bertrand. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1903. implication, a relation that holds between two statements when the truth
of the first ensures the truth of the second. A number of statements together
imply Q if their joint truth ensures the truth of Q. An argument is deductively
valid exactly when its premises imply its conclusion. Expressions of the
following forms are often interchanged one for the other: ‘P implies Q’, ‘Q
follows from P’, and ‘P entails Q’. (‘Entailment’ also has a more restricted
meaning.) In ordinary discourse, ‘implication’ has wider meanings that are
important for understanding reasoning and communication of all kinds. The
sentence ‘Last Tuesday, the editor remained sober throughout lunch’ does not
imply that the editor is not always sober. But one who asserted the sentence
typically would imply this. The theory of conversational implicaturum explains
how speakers often imply more than their sentences imply. The term
‘implication’ also applies to conditional statements. A material implication of
the form ‘if P, then Q’ (often symbolized ‘P P Q’ or ‘P / Q’) is true so long
as either the if-clause P is false or the main clause Q is true; it is false
only if P is true and Q is false. A strict implication of the form ‘if P, then
Q’ (often symbolized ‘P Q’) is true exactly when the corresponding material
implication is necessarily true; i.e., when it is impossible for P to be true
when Q is false. The following valid forms of argument are called paradoxes of
material implication: Q. Therefore, P / Q. Not-P. Therefore, P / Q. The
appearance of paradox here is due to using ‘implication’ as a name both for a
relation between statements and for statements of conditional form. A
conditional statement can be true even though there is no relation between its
components. Consider the following valid inference: Butter floats in milk.
Therefore, fish sleep at night / butter floats in milk. Since the simple
premise is true, the conditional conclusion is also true despite the fact that
the nocturnal activities of fish and the comparative densities of milk and
butter are completely unreimmediate inference implication 419 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 419 lated. The statement ‘Fish sleep at night’ does not
imply that butter floats in milk. It is better to call a conditional statement
that is true just so long as it does not have a true if-clause and a false main
clause a material conditional rather than a material implication. Strict
conditional is similarly preferable to ‘strict implication’. Respecting this
distinction, however, does not dissolve all the puzzlement of the so-called
paradoxes of strict implication: Necessarily Q. Therefore, P Q. Impossible that
P. Therefore, P Q. Here is an example of the first pattern: Necessarily, all
rectangles are rectangles. Therefore, fish sleep at night all rectangles are
rectangles. ‘All rectangles are rectangles’ is an example of a vacuous truth,
so called because it is devoid of content. ‘All squares are rectangles’ and ‘5
is greater than 3’ are not so obviously vacuous truths, although they are
necessary truths. Vacuity is not a sharply defined notion. Here is an example
of the second pattern: It is impossible that butter always floats in milk yet
sometimes does not float in milk. Therefore, butter always floats in milk yet
sometimes does not float in milk fish sleep at night. Does the if-clause of the
conclusion imply (or entail) the main clause? On one hand, what butter does in
milk is, as before, irrelevant to whether fish sleep at night. On this ground,
relevance logic denies there is a relation of implication or entailment. On the
other hand, it is impossible for the if-clause to be true when the main clause
is false, because it is impossible for the if-clause to be true in any
circumstances whatever. Speranza, Luigi. Join the Grice Club! Strawson, P. F..
“On Referring.” Mind 59 (1950): 320–44.
IN-POSITVM
–
Grice: “Again, the assimilation of the ‘n’ to ‘m’ before ‘p’ is only vulgar!”
-- impositum: “An apt term by Boezio,” Grice. There’s preposition, proposition,
supposition, and imposition! a property of terms resulting from a convention to
designate something. A term is not a mere noise but a significant sound. A term
designating extralinguistic entities, such as ‘tree’, ‘stone’, ‘blue’, and the
like, are classified by the tradition since Boethius as terms of “prima
impositio,” first imposition. A term designating another term or other
communicative items, such as ‘noun’, ‘declension’, and the like, is classified
as terms of ‘secunda imposition.’ The distinction between a terms of ‘prima
impositio’ and ‘secunda impositio’ belongs to the realm of the communicatum,
while the parallel distinction between terms of first and second ‘intentio’
belongs to the realm of the animatum A ‘prima intentio’ (intentio re re), frst
intention is, broadly, thoughts about trees, stones, colours, etc. A ‘intentio
secunda,’ (intention de sensu), second intention, is a thought about a first
intention. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “De sensu implicaturum.”
IN-DUCTVM
-- inductum:
in the narrow sense, inference to a generalization from its instances; (2) in
the broad sense, any ampliative inference – i.e., any inference where the claim
made by the conclusion goes beyond the claim jointly made by the premises.
Induction in the broad sense includes, as cases of particular interest:
argument by analogy, predictive inference, inference to causes from signs and
symptoms, and confirmation of scientific laws and theories. The narrow sense
covers one extreme case that is not ampliative. That is the case of
mathematical induction, where the premises of the argument necessarily imply
the generalization that is its conclusion. Inductive logic can be conceived
most generally as the theory of the evaluation of ampliative inference. In this
sense, much of probability theory, theoretical statistics, and the theory of
computability are parts of inductive logic. In addition, studies of scientific
method can be seen as addressing in a less formal way the question of the logic
of inductive inference. The name ‘inductive logic’ has also, however, become
associated with a specific approach to these issues deriving from the work of
Bayes, Laplace, De Morgan, and Carnap. On this approach, one’s prior
probabilities in a state of ignorance are determined or constrained by some
principle for the quantification of ignorance and one learns by conditioning on
the evidence. A recurrent difficulty with this line of attack is that the way
in which ignorance is quantified depends on how the problem is described, with
different logically equivalent descriptions leading to different prior
probabilities. Carnap laid down as a postulate for the application of his
inductive logic that one should always condition on one’s total evidence. This
rule of total evidence is usually taken for granted, but what justification is
there for it? Good pointed out that the standard Bayesian analysis of the
expected value of new information provides such a justification. Pure cost-free
information always has non-negative expected value, and if there is positive
probability that it will affect a decision, its expected value is positive.
Ramsey made the same point in an unpublished manuscript. The proof generalizes
to various models of learning uncertain evidence. A deductive account is
sometimes presented indubitability induction 425 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM
Page 425 where induction proceeds by elimination of possibilities that would
make the conclusion false. Thus Mill’s methods of experimental inquiry are
sometimes analyzed as proceeding by elimination of alternative possibilities.
In a more general setting, the hypothetico-deductive account of science holds
that theories are confirmed by their observational consequences – i.e., by
elimination of the possibilities that this experiment or that observation
falsifies the theory. Induction by elimination is sometimes put forth as an
alternative to probabilistic accounts of induction, but at least one version of
it is consistent with – and indeed a consequence of – probabilistic accounts.
It is an elementary fact of probability that if F, the potential falsifier, is
inconsistent with T and both have probability strictly between 0 and 1, then
the probability of T conditional on not-F is higher than the unconditional
probability of T. In a certain sense, inductive support of a universal
generalization by its instances may be a special case of the foregoing, but
this point must be treated with some care. In the first place, the universal
generalization must have positive prior probability. (It is worth noting that
Carnap’s systems of inductive logic do not satisfy this condition, although
systems of Hintikka and Niiniluoto do.) In the second place, the notion of
instance must be construed so the “instances” of a universal generalization are
in fact logical consequences of it. Thus ‘If A is a swan then A is white’ is an
instance of ‘All swans are white’ in the appropriate sense, but ‘A is a white
swan’ is not. The latter statement is logically stronger than ‘If A is a swan
then A is white’ and a complete report on species, weight, color, sex, etc., of
individual A would be stronger still. Such statements are not logical
consequences of the universal generalization, and the theorem does not hold for
them. For example, the report of a man 7 feet 11¾ inches tall might actually
reduce the probability of the generalization that all men are under 8 feet
tall. Residual queasiness about the foregoing may be dispelled by a point made
by Carnap apropos of Hempel’s discussion of paradoxes of confirmation.
‘Confirmation’ is ambiguous. ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H
conditional on E is greater than the unconditional probability of H, in which
case deductive consequences of H confirm H under the conditions set forth
above. Or ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H conditional on E is
high (e.g., greater than .95), in which case if E confirms H, then E confirms
every logical consequence of H. Conflation of the two senses can lead one to
the paradoxical conclusion that E confirms E & P and thus P for any statement,
P. inductum -- inductivism: “A philosophy of
science invented by Popper and P. K. Feyerabend as a foil for their own views. Why,
I must just have well invented ‘sensism’ as a foil for my theory of implicaturum!”
-- According to inductivism, a unique a priori inductive logic enables one to
construct an algorithm that will compute from any input of data the best
scientific theory accounting for that data. inductum: Not deductum, --
nor abductum -- epapoge, Grecian term for ‘induction’. Especially in the logic
of Aristotle, epagoge is opposed to argument by syllogism. Aristotle describes
it as “a move from particulars to the universal.” E.g., premises that the
skilled navigator is the best navigator, the skilled charioteer the best
charioteer, and the skilled philosopher the best philosopher may support the
conclusion by epagoge that those skilled in something are usually the best at
it. Aristotle thought it more persuasive and clearer than the syllogistic
method, since it relies on the senses and is available to all humans. The term
was later applied to dialectical arguments intended to trap opponents. R.C.
epicheirema, a polysyllogism in which each premise represents an enthymematic
argument; e.g., ‘A lie creates disbelief, because it is an assertion that does
not correspond to truth; flattery is a lie, because it is a conscious
distortion of truth; therefore, flattery creates disbelief’. Each premise
constitutes an enthymematic syllogism. Thus, the first premise could be
expanded into the following full-fledged syllogism: ‘Every assertion that does
not correspond to truth creates disbelief; a lie is an assertion that does not
correspond to truth; therefore a lie creates disbelief’. We could likewise
expand the second premise and offer a complete argument for it. Epicheirema can
thus be a powerful tool in oral polemics, especially when one argues
regressively, first stating the conclusion with a sketch of support in terms of
enthymemes, and then if challenged to do
so expanding any or all of these enthymemes
into standard categorical syllogisms.
IN-LATUM -- illatum: A form of the conjugation
Grice enjoyed was “inferentia,” cf essentia,
sententia, prudentia, etc.. – see illatum -- Cf. illatio. Consequentia.
Implicatio. Grice’s implicaturum and what the emissor implicates as a variation
on the logical usage.
infima species (Latin, ‘lowest species’),
a species that is not a genus of any other species. According to the theory of
classification, division, and definition that is part of traditional or Aristotelian
logic, every individual is a specimen of some infima species. An infima species
is a member of a genus that may in turn be a species of a more inclusive genus,
and so on, until one reaches a summum genus, a genus that is not a species of a
more inclusive genus. Socrates and Plato are specimens of the infima specis
human being (mortal rational animal), which is a species of the genus rational
animal, which is a species of the genus animal, and so on, up to the summum
genus substance. Whereas two specimens of animal – e.g., an individual human
and an individual horse – can differ partly in their essential characteristics,
no two specimens of the infima species human being can differ in essence.
infinite-off
predicament, or ∞-off predicament.
IN-FINITVM -- infinitum: Cantor, G. Grice
thought that “I know there are infinitely many stars” is a stupid thing to say
-- one of a number of late nineteenthcentury philosophers including Frege,
Dedekind, Peano, Russell, and Hilbert who transformed both mathematics and the
study of its philosophical foundations. The philosophical import of Cantor’s
work is threefold. First, it was primarily Cantor who turned arbitrary
collections into objects of mathematical study, sets. Second, he created a
coherent mathematical theory of the infinite, in particular a theory of
transfinite numbers. Third, linking these, he was the first to indicate that it
might be possible to present mathematics as nothing but the theory of sets,
thus making set theory foundational for mathematics. This contributed to the
Camus, Albert Cantor, Georg 116 116
view that the foundations of mathematics should itself become an object of
mathematical study. Cantor also held to a form of principle of plenitude, the
belief that all the infinities given in his theory of transfinite numbers are
represented not just in mathematical or “immanent” reality, but also in the
“transient” reality of God’s created world. Cantor’s main, direct achievement
is his theory of transfinite numbers and infinity. He characterized as did
Frege sameness of size in terms of one-to-one correspondence, thus accepting
the paradoxical results known to Galileo and others, e.g., that the collection
of all natural numbers has the same cardinality or size as that of all even
numbers. He added to these surprising results by showing 1874 that there is the
same number of algebraic and thus rational numbers as there are natural
numbers, but that there are more points on a continuous line than there are
natural or rational or algebraic numbers, thus revealing that there are at
least two different kinds of infinity present in ordinary mathematics, and
consequently demonstrating the need for a mathematical treatment of these
infinities. This latter result is often expressed by saying that the continuum
is uncountable. Cantor’s theorem of 2 is a generalization of part of this, for
it says that the set of all subsets the power-set of a given set must be
cardinally greater than that set, thus giving rise to the possibility of
indefinitely many different infinities. The collection of all real numbers has
the same size as the power-set of natural numbers. Cantor’s theory of
transfinite numbers 0 97 was his developed mathematical theory of infinity,
with the infinite cardinal numbers the F-, or aleph-, numbers based on the
infinite ordinal numbers that he introduced in 0 and 3. The F-numbers are in
effect the cardinalities of infinite well-ordered sets. The theory thus
generates two famous questions, whether all sets in particular the continuum
can be well ordered, and if so which of the F-numbers represents the
cardinality of the continuum. The former question was answered positively by
Zermelo in 4, though at the expense of postulating one of the most
controversial principles in the history of mathematics, the axiom of choice.
The latter question is the celebrated continuum problem. Cantor’s famous
continuum hypothesis CH is his conjecture that the cardinality of the continuum
is represented by F1, the second aleph. CH was shown to be independent of the
usual assumptions of set theory by Gödel 8 and Cohen 3. Extensions of Cohen’s
methods show that it is consistent to assume that the cardinality of the
continuum is given by almost any of the vast array of F-numbers. The continuum
problem is now widely considered insoluble. Cantor’s conception of set is often
taken to admit the whole universe of sets as a set, thus engendering
contradiction, in particular in the form of Cantor’s paradox. For Cantor’s
theorem would say that the power-set of the universe must be bigger than it,
while, since this powerset is a set of sets, it must be contained in the
universal set, and thus can be no bigger. However, it follows from Cantor’s
early 3 considerations of what he called the “absolute infinite” that none of
the collections discovered later to be at the base of the paradoxes can be
proper sets. Moreover, correspondence with Hilbert in 7 and Dedekind in 9 see
Cantor, Gesammelte Abhandlungen mathematischen und philosophischen Inhalts, 2
shows clearly that Cantor was well aware that contradictions will arise if such
collections are treated as ordinary sets.
“What is not finite.” “I know that there
are infinitely many stars” – an example of a stupid thing to say by the man in
the street. apeiron, Grecian term meaning ‘the boundless’ or ‘the
unlimited’, which evolved to signify ‘the infinite’. Anaximander introduced the
term to philosophy by saying that the source of all things was apeiron. There
is some disagreement about whether he meant by this the spatially antinomy
apeiron unbounded, the temporally unbounded, or the qualitatively
indeterminate. It seems likely that he intended the term to convey the first
meaning, but the other two senses also happen to apply to the spatially
unbounded. After Anaximander, Anaximenes declared as his first principle that
air is boundless, and Xenophanes made his flat earth extend downward without
bounds, and probably outward horizontally without limit as well. Rejecting the
tradition of boundless principles, Parmenides argued that “what-is” must be
held within determinate boundaries. But his follower Melissus again argued that
what-is must be boundless in both time
and space for it can have no beginning
or end. Another follower of Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, argued that if there are
many substances, antinomies arise, including the consequences that substances
are both limited and unlimited apeira in number, and that they are so small as
not to have size and so large as to be unlimited in size. Rejecting monism, Anaxagoras
argued for an indefinite number of elements that are each unlimited in size,
and the Pythagorean Philolaus made limiters perainonta and unlimiteds apeira
the principles from which all things are composed. The atomists Leucippus and
Democritus conceived of a boundless universe, partly full of an infinite number
of atoms and partly void; and in the universe are countless apeiroi worlds.
Finally Aristotle arrived at an abstract understanding of the apeiron as “the
infinite,” claiming to settle paradoxes about the boundless by allowing for
real quantities to be infinitely divisible potentially, but not actually
Physics III.48. The development of the notion of the apeiron shows how Grecian
philosophers evolved ever more abstract philosophical ideas from relatively
concrete conceptions. Infinity -- Grice
thougth that “There are infinitely many stars” was a stupid thing to say --
diagonal procedure, a method, originated by Cantor, for showing that there are
infinite sets that cannot be put in one-to-one correspondence with the set of
natural numbers i.e., enumerated. For example, the method can be used to show
that the set of real numbers x in the interval 0 ‹ x m 1 is not enumerable.
Suppose x0, x1, x2, . . . were such an enumeration x0 is the real correlated
with 0; x1, the real correlated with 1; and so on. Then consider the list
formed by replacing each real in the enumeration with the unique
non-terminating decimal fraction representing it: The first decimal fraction
represents x0; the second, x1; and so on. By diagonalization we select the
decimal fraction shown by the arrows: and change each digit xnn, taking care to
avoid a terminating decimal. This fraction is not on our list. For it differs
from the first in the tenths place, from the second in the hundredths place,
and from the third in the thousandths place, and so on. Thus the real it
represents is not in the supposed enumeration. This contradicts the original
assumption. The idea can be put more elegantly. Let f be any function such
that, for each natural number n, fn is a set of natural numbers. Then there is
a set S of natural numbers such that n 1 S S n 2 fn. It is obvious that, for
each n, fn & S. Infinity -- eternal
return, the doctrine that the same events, occurring in the same sequence and
involving the same things, have occurred infinitely many times in the past and
will occur infinitely many times in the future. Attributed most notably to the
Stoics and Nietzsche, the doctrine is antithetical to philosophical and
religious viewpoints that claim that the world order is unique, contingent in
part, and directed toward some goal. The Stoics interpret eternal return as the
consequence of perpetual divine activity imposing exceptionless causal
principles on the world in a supremely rational, providential way. The world,
being the best possible, can only be repeated endlessly. The Stoics do not
explain why the best world cannot be everlasting, making repetition
unnecessary. It is not clear whether Nietzsche asserted eternal return as a
cosmological doctrine or only as a thought experiment designed to confront one
with the authenticity of one’s life: would one affirm that life even if one
were consigned to live it over again without end? On either interpretation,
Nietzsche’s version, like the Stoic version, stresses the inexorability and
necessary interconnectedness of all things and events, although unlike the
Stoic version, it rejects divine providence.
infinitary logic, the logic of expressions of infinite length. Quine has
advanced the claim that firstorder logic (FOL) is the language of science, a
position accepted by many of his followers. Howinferential justification
infinitary logic 428 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 428 ever, many
important notions of mathematics and science are not expressible in FOL. The
notion of finiteness, e.g., is central in mathematics but cannot be expressed
within FOL. There is no way to express such a simple, precise claim as ‘There
are only finitely many stars’ in FOL. This and related expressive limitations in
FOL seriously hamper its applicability to the study of mathematics and have led
to the study of stronger logics. There have been various approaches to getting
around the limitations by the study of so-called strong logics, including
second-order logic (where one quantifies over sets or properties, not just
individuals), generalized quantifiers (where one adds quantifiers in addition
to the usual ‘for all’ and ‘there exists’), and branching quantifiers (where
notions of independence of variables is introduced). One of the most fruitful
methods has been the introduction of idealized “infinitely long” statements.
For example, the above statement about the stars would be formalized as an
infinite disjunction: there is at most one star, or there are at most two
stars, or there are at most three stars, etc. Each of these disjuncts is
expressible in FOL. The expressive limitations in FOL are closely linked with
Gödel’s famous completeness and incompleteness theorems. These results show,
among other things, that any attempt to systematize the laws of logic is going
to be inadequate, one way or another. Either it will be confined to a language
with expressive limitations, so that these notions cannot even be expressed, or
else, if they can be expressed, then an attempt at giving an effective listing
of axioms and rules of inference for the language will fall short. In
infinitary logic, the rules of inference can have infinitely many premises, and
so are not effectively presentable. Early work in infinitary logic used cardinality
as a guide: whether or not a disjunction, conjunction, or quantifier string was
permitted had to do only with the cardinality of the set in question. It turned
out that the most fruitful of these logics was the language with countable
conjunctions and finite strings of first-order quantifiers. This language had
further refinements to socalled admissible languages, where more refined
set-theoretic considerations play a role in determining what counts as a
formula. Infinitary languages are also connected with strong axioms of
infinity, statements that do not follow from the usual axioms of set theory but
for which one has other evidence that they might well be true, or at least
consistent. In particular, compact cardinals are infinite cardinal numbers
where the analogue of the compactness theorem of FOL generalizes to the
associated infinitary language. These cardinals have proven to be very
important in modern set theory. During the 1990s, some infinitary logics played
a surprising role in computer science. By allowing arbitrarily long
conjunctions and disjunctions, but only finitely many variables (free or bound)
in any formula, languages with attractive closure properties were found that
allowed the kinds of inductive procedures of computer science, procedures not
expressible in FOL. -- infinite regress argument, a distinctively philosophical
kind of argument purporting to show that a thesis is defective because it
generates an infinite series when either (form A) no such series exists or
(form B) were it to exist, the thesis would lack the role (e.g., of
justification) that it is supposed to play. The mere generation of an infinite
series is not objectionable. It is misleading therefore to use ‘infinite
regress’ (or ‘regress’) and ‘infinite series’ equivalently. For instance, both
of the following claims generate an infinite series: (1) every natural number
has a successor that itself is a natural number, and (2) every event has a
causal predecessor that itself is an event. Yet (1) is true (arguably,
necessarily true), and (2) may be true for all that logic can say about the
matter. Likewise, there is nothing contrary to logic about any of the infinite
series generated by the suppositions that (3) every free act is the consequence
of a free act of choice; (4) every intelligent operation is the result of an
intelligent mental operation; (5) whenever individuals x and y share a property
F there exists a third individual z which paradigmatically has F and to which x
and y are somehow related (as copies, by participation, or whatnot); or (6)
every generalization from experience is inductively inferable from experience
by appeal to some other generalization from experience. What Locke (in the
Essay concerning Human Understanding) objects to about the theory of free will
embodied in (3) and Ryle (in The Concept of Mind) objects to about the
“intellectualist leginfinite, actual infinite regress argument 429 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 429 end” embodied in (4) can therefore be only that it
is just plain false as a matter of fact that we perform an infinite number of
acts of choice or operations of the requisite kinds. In effect their infinite
regress arguments are of form A: they argue that the theories concerned must be
rejected because they falsely imply that such infinite series exist. Arguably
the infinite regress arguments employed by Plato (in the Parmenides) regarding
his own theory of Forms and by Popper (in the Logic of Scientific Discovery)
regarding the principle of induction proposed by Mill, are best construed as
having form B, their objections being less to (5) or (6) than to their
epistemic versions: (5*) that we can understand how x and y can share a
property F only if we understand that there exists a third individual (the
“Form” z) which paradigmatically has F and to which x and y are related; and
(6*) that since the principle of induction must itself be a generalization from
experience, we are justified in accepting it only if it can be inferred from
experience by appeal to a higherorder, and justified, inductive principle. They
are arguing that because the series generated by (5) and (6) are infinite, the
epistemic enlightenment promised by (5*) and (6*) will forever elude us. When
successful, infinite regress arguments can show us that certain sorts of
explanation, understanding, or justification are will-o’-thewisps. As Passmore
has observed (in Philosophical Reasoning) there is an important sense of
‘explain’ in which it is impossible to explain predication. We cannot explain
x’s and y’s possession of the common property F by saying that they are called
by the same name (nominalism) or fall under the same concept (conceptualism)
any more than we can by saying that they are related to the same form (Platonic
realism), since each of these is itself a property that x and y are supposed to
have in common. Likewise, it makes no sense to try to explain why anything at
all exists by invoking the existence of something else (such as the theist’s
God). The general truths that things exist, and that things may have properties
in common, are “brute facts” about the way the world is. Some infinite regress
objections fail because they are directed at “straw men.” Bradley’s regress
argument against the pluralist’s “arrangement of given facts into relations and
qualities,” from which he concludes that monism is true, is a case in point. He
correctly argues that if one posits the existence of two or more things, then
there must be relations of some sort between them, and then (given his covert
assumption that these relations are things) concludes that there must be
further relations between these relations ad infinitum. Bradley’s regress
misfires because a pluralist would reject his assumption. Again, some regress
arguments fail because they presume that any infinite series is vicious.
Aquinas’s regress objection to an infinite series of movers, from which he
concludes that there must be a prime mover, involves this sort of confusion. --
infinity, in set theory, the property of a set whereby it has a proper subset
whose members can be placed in one-to-one correspondence with all the members
of the set, as the even integers can be so arranged in respect to the natural
numbers by the function f(x) = x/2, namely: Devised by Richard Dedekind in
defiance of the age-old intuition that no part of a thing can be as large as
the thing, this set-theoretical definition of ‘infinity’, having been much
acclaimed by philosophers like Russell as a model of conceptual analysis that
philosophers were urged to emulate, can elucidate the putative infinity of
space, time, and even God, his power, wisdom, etc. If a set’s being denumerable
– i.e., capable of having its members placed in one-to-one correspondence with
the natural numbers – can well appear to define much more simply what the
infinity of an infinite set is, Cantor exhibited the real numbers (as expressed
by unending decimal expansions) as a counterexample, showing them to be
indenumerable by means of his famous diagonal argument. Suppose all the real
numbers between 0 and 1 are placed in one-to-one correspondence with the
natural numbers, thus: Going down the principal diagonal, we can construct a
new real number, e.g., .954 . . . , not found in the infinite “square array.”
The most important result in set theory, Cantor’s theorem, is denied its full
force by the maverick followers infinity infinity 430 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999
7:39 AM Page 430 of Skolem, who appeal to the fact that, though the real
numbers constructible in any standard axiomatic system will be indenumerable
relative to the resources of the system, they can be seen to be denumerable
when viewed from outside it. Refusing to accept the absolute indenumerability
of any set, the Skolemites, in relativizing the notion to some system, provide
one further instance of the allure of relativism. More radical still are the
nominalists who, rejecting all abstract entities and sets in particular, might
be supposed to have no use for Cantor’s theorem. Not so. Assume with Democritus
that there are infinitely many of his atoms, made of adamant. Corresponding to
each infinite subset of these atoms will be their mereological sum or “fusion,”
namely a certain quantity of adamant. Concrete entities acceptable to the
nominalist, these quantities can be readily shown to be indenumerable. Whether
Cantor’s still higher infinities beyond F1 admit of any such nominalistic
realization remains a largely unexplored area. Aleph-zero or F0 being taken to
be the transfinite number of the natural numbers, there are then F1 real
numbers (assuming the continuum hypothesis), while the power set of the reals
has F2 members, and the power set of that F3 members, etc. In general, K2 will
be said to have a greater number (finite or transfinite) of members than K1
provided the members of K1 can be put in one-to-one correspondence with some
proper subset of K2 but not vice versa. Skepticism regarding the higher
infinities can trickle down even to F0, and if both Aristotle and Kant, the
former in his critique of Zeno’s paradoxes, the latter in his treatment of
cosmological antinomies, reject any actual, i.e. completed, infinite, in our
time Dummett’s return to verificationism, as associated with the mathematical
intuitionism of Brouwer, poses the keenest challenge. Recognition-transcendent
sentences like ‘The total number of stars is infinite’ are charged with
violating the intersubjective conditions required for a speaker of a language
to manifest a grasp of their meaning. Strawson, or Grice’s favourite
informalist: THE INFORMALISTS – A Group under which Grice situated his
post-generational Strawson and his pre-generational Ryle. informal fallacy, an
error of reasoning or tactic of argument that can be used to persuade someone
with whom you are reasoning that your argument is correct when really it is not.
The standard treatment of the informal fallacies in logic textbooks draws
heavily on Aristotle’s list, but there are many variants, and new fallacies
have often been added, some of which have gained strong footholds in the
textbooks. The word ‘informal’ indicates that these fallacies are not simply
localized faults or failures in the given propositions (premises and
conclusion) of an argument to conform to a standard of semantic correctness
(like that of deductive logic), but are misuses of the argument in relation to
a context of reasoning or type of dialogue that an arguer is supposed to be
engaged in. Informal logic is the subfield of logical inquiry that deals with
these fallacies. Typically, informal fallacies have a pragmatic (practical)
aspect relating to how an argument is being used, and also a dialectical
aspect, pertaining to a context of dialogue – normally an exchange between two
participants in a discussion. Both aspects are major concerns of informal
logic. Logic textbooks classify informal fallacies in various ways, but no
clear and widely accepted system of classification has yet become established.
Some textbooks are very inventive and prolific, citing many different
fallacies, including novel and exotic ones. Others are more conservative, sticking
with the twenty or so mainly featured in or derived from Aristotle’s original
treatment, with a few widely accepted additions. The paragraphs below cover
most of these “major” or widely featured fallacies, the ones most likely to be
encountered by name in the language of everyday educated conversation. The
genetic fallacy is the error of drawing an inappropriate conclusion about the
goodness or badness of some property of a thing from the goodness or badness of
some property of the origin of that thing. For example, ‘This medication was
derived from a plant that is poisonous; therefore, even though my physician
advises me to take it, I conclude that it would be very bad for me if I took
it.’ The error is inappropriately arguing from the origin of the medication to
the conclusion that it must be poisonous in any form or situation. The genetic
fallacy is often construed very broadly making it coextensive with the personal
attack type of argument (see the description of argumentum ad hominem below)
that condemns a prior argument by condemning its source or proponent.
Argumentum ad populum (argument to the people) is a kind of argument that uses
appeal to popular sentiments to support a conclusion. Sometimes called “appeal
to the gallery” or “appeal to popular pieties” or even “mob appeal,” this kind
of argument has traditionally been portrayed as fallacious. However, there
infinity, axiom of informal fallacy 431 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 431
need be nothing wrong with appealing to popular sentiments in argument, so long
as their evidential value is not exaggerated. Even so, such a tactic can be
fallacious when the attempt to arouse mass enthusiasms is used as a substitute
to cover for a failure to bring forward the kind of evidence that is properly
required to support one’s conclusion. Argumentum ad misericordiam (argument to
pity) is a kind of argument that uses an appeal to pity, sympathy, or
compassion to support its conclusion. Such arguments can have a legitimate
place in some discussions – e.g., in appeals for charitable donations. But they
can also put emotional pressure on a respondent in argument to try to cover up
a weak case. For example, a student who does not have a legitimate reason for a
late assignment might argue that if he doesn’t get a high grade, his
disappointed mother might have a heart attack. The fallacy of composition is
the error of arguing from a property of parts of a whole to a property of the
whole – e.g., ‘The important parts of this machine are light; therefore this machine
is light.’ But a property of the parts cannot always be transferred to the
whole. In some cases, examples of the fallacy of composition are arguments from
all the parts to a whole, e.g. ‘Everybody in the country pays her debts.
Therefore the country pays its debts.’ The fallacy of division is the converse
of that of composition: the error of arguing from a property of the whole to a
property of its parts – e.g., ‘This machine is heavy; therefore all the parts
of this machine are heavy.’ The problem is that the property possessed by the
whole need not transfer to the parts. The fallacy of false cause, sometimes
called post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), is
the error of arguing that because two events are correlated with one another,
especially when they vary together, the one is the cause of the other. For
example, there might be a genuine correlation between the stork population in
certain areas of Europe and the human birth rate. But it would be an error to
conclude, on that basis alone, that the presence of storks causes babies to be
born. In general, however, correlation is good, if sometimes weak, evidence for
causation. The problem comes in when the evidential strength of the correlation
is exaggerated as causal evidence. The apparent connection could just be
coincidence, or due to other factors that have not been taken into account,
e.g., some third factor that causes both the events that are correlated with
each other. The fallacy of secundum quid (neglecting qualifications) occurs
where someone is arguing from a general rule to a particular case, or vice
versa. One version of it is arguing from a general rule while overlooking or
suppressing legitimate exceptions. This kind of error has also often been
called the fallacy of accident. An example would be the argument ‘Everyone has
the right to freedom of speech; therefore it is my right to shout “Fire” in
this crowded theater if I want to.’ The other version of secundum quid,
sometimes also called the fallacy of converse accident, or the fallacy of hasty
generalization, is the error of trying to argue from a particular case to a
general rule that does not properly fit that case. An example would be the
argument ‘Tweetie [an ostrich] is a bird that does not fly; therefore birds do
not fly’. The fault is the failure to recognize or acknowledge that Tweetie is
not a typical bird with respect to flying. Argumentum consensus gentium
(argument from the consensus of the nations) is a kind that appeals to the
common consent of mankind to support a conclusion. Numerous philosophers and
theologians in the past have appealed to this kind of argument to support
conclusions like the existence of God and the binding character of moral
principles. For example, ‘Belief in God is practically universal among human
beings past and present; therefore there is a practical weight of presumption
in favor of the truth of the proposition that God exists’. A version of the
consensus gentium argument represented by this example has sometimes been put
forward in logic textbooks as an instance of the argumentum ad populum
(described above) called the argument from popularity: ‘Everybody believes
(accepts) P as true; therefore P is true’. If interpreted as applicable in all
cases, the argument from popularity is not generally sound, and may be regarded
as a fallacy. However, if regarded as a presumptive inference that only applies
in some cases, and as subject to withdrawal where evidence to the contrary
exists, it can sometimes be regarded as a weak but plausible argument, useful
to serve as a provisional guide to prudent action or reasoned commitment.
Argumentum ad hominem (literally, argument against the man) is a kind of
argument that uses a personal attack against an arguer to refute her argument. In
the abusive or personal variant, the character of the arguer (especially
character for veracity) is attacked; e.g., ‘You can’t believe what Smith says –
he is a liar’. In evaluating testimony (e.g., in legal cross-examination),
attacking an arguer’s character can be legitimate in some cases. Also in
political debate, character can be a legitimate issue. However, ad hominem
arguinformal fallacy informal fallacy 432 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page
432 ments are commonly used fallaciously in attacking an opponent unfairly –
e.g., where the attack is not merited, or where it is used to distract an
audience from more relevant lines of argument. In the circumstantial variant,
an arguer’s personal circumstances are claimed to be in conflict with his
argument, implying that the arguer is either confused or insincere; e.g., ‘You
don’t practice what you preach’. For example, a politician who has once
advocated not raising taxes may be accused of “flip-flopping” if he himself
subsequently favors legislation to raise taxes. This type of argument is not
inherently fallacious, but it can go badly wrong, or be used in a fallacious
way, for example if circumstances changed, or if the alleged conflict was less
serious than the attacker claimed. Another variant is the “poisoning the well”
type of ad hominem argument, where an arguer is said to have shown no regard
for the truth, the implication being that nothing he says henceforth can ever
be trusted as reliable. Yet another variant of the ad hominem argument often
cited in logic textbooks is the tu quoque (you-too reply), where the arguer
attacked by an ad hominem argument turns around and says, “What about you?
Haven’t you ever lied before? You’re just as bad.” Still another variant is the
bias type of ad hominem argument, where one party in an argument charges the
other with not being honest or impartial or with having hidden motivations or
personal interests at stake. Argumentum ad baculum (argument to the club) is a
kind of argument that appeals to a threat or to fear in order to support a
conclusion, or to intimidate a respondent into accepting it. Ad baculum
arguments often take an indirect form; e.g., ‘If you don’t do this, harmful
consequences to you might follow’. In such cases the utterance can often be
taken as a threat. Ad baculum arguments are not inherently fallacious, because
appeals to threatening or fearsome sanctions – e.g., harsh penalties for
drunken driving – are not necessarily failures of critical argumentation. But
because ad baculum arguments are powerful in eliciting emotions, they are often
used persuasively as sophistical tactics in argumentation to avoid fulfilling
the proper requirements of a burden of proof. Argument from authority is a kind
of argument that uses expert opinion (de facto authority) or the pronouncement
of someone invested with an institutional office or title (de jure authority)
to support a conclusion. As a practical but fallible method of steering
discussion toward a presumptive conclusion, the argument from authority can be
a reasonable way of shifting a burden of proof. However, if pressed too hard in
a discussion or portrayed as a better justification for a conclusion than the
evidence warrants, it can become a fallacious argumentum ad verecundiam (see
below). It should be noted, however, that arguments based on expert opinions
are widely accepted both in artificial intelligence and everyday argumentation
as legitimate and sound under the right conditions. Although arguments from
authority have been strongly condemned during some historical periods as
inherently fallacious, the current climate of opinion is to think of them as
acceptable in some cases, even if they are fallible arguments that can easily
go wrong or be misused by sophistical persuaders. Argumentum ad judicium represents
a kind of knowledge-based argumentation that is empirical, as opposed to being
based on an arguer’s personal opinion or viewpoint. In modern terminology, it
apparently refers to an argument based on objective evidence, as opposed to
somebody’s subjective opinion. The term appears to have been invented by Locke
to contrast three commonly used kinds of arguments and a fourth special type of
argument. The first three types of argument are based on premises that the
respondent of the argument is taken to have already accepted. Thus these can
all be called “personal” in nature. The fourth kind of argument – argumentum ad
judicium – does not have to be based on what some person accepts, and so could
perhaps be called “impersonal.” Locke writes that the first three kinds of
arguments can dispose a person for the reception of truth, but cannot help that
person to the truth. Only the argumentum ad judicium can do that. The first
three types of arguments come from “my shamefacedness, ignorance or error,”
whereas the argumentum ad judicium “comes from proofs and arguments and light
arising from the nature of things themselves.” The first three types of
arguments have only a preparatory function in finding the truth of a matter,
whereas the argumentum ad judicium is more directly instrumental in helping us
to find the truth. Argumentum ad verecundiam (argument to reverence or respect)
is the fallacious use of expert opinion in argumentation to try to persuade
someone to accept a conclusion. In the Essay concerning Human Understanding
(1690) Locke describes such arguments as tactics of trying to prevail on the
assent of someone by portraying him as irreverent or immodest if he does not
readily yield to the authority of some learned informal opinion cited. Locke
does not claim, however, that all appeals to expert authority in argument are
fallacious. They can be reasonable if used judiciously. Argumentum ad
ignorantiam (argument to ignorance) takes the following form: a proposition a
is not known or proved to be true (false); therefore A is false (true). It is a
negative type of knowledge-based or presumptive reasoning, generally not
conclusive, but it is nevertheless often non-fallacious in
balance-of-consideration cases where the evidence is inconclusive to resolve a disputed
question. In such cases it is a kind of presumption-based argumentation used to
advocate adopting a conclusion provisionally, in the absence of hard knowledge
that would determine whether the conclusion is true or false. An example would
be: Smith has not been heard from for over seven years, and there is no
evidence that he is alive; therefore it may be presumed (for the purpose of
settling Smith’s estate) that he is dead. Arguments from ignorance ought not to
be pressed too hard or used with too strong a degree of confidence. An example
comes from the U.S. Senate hearings in 1950, in which Senator Joseph McCarthy
used case histories to argue that certain persons in the State Department
should be considered Communists. Of one case he said, “I do not have much
information on this except the general statement of the agency that there is
nothing in the files to disprove his Communist connections.” The strength of
any argument from ignorance depends on the thoroughness of the search made. The
argument from ignorance can be used to shift a burden of proof merely on the
basis of rumor, innuendo, or false accusations, instead of real evidence.
Ignoratio elenchi (ignorance of refutation) is the traditional name, following
Aristotle, for the fault of failing to keep to the point in an argument. The
fallacy is also called irrelevant conclusion or missing the point. Such a
failure of relevance is essentially a failure to keep closely enough to the
issue under discussion. Suppose that during a criminal trial, the prosecutor
displays the victim’s bloody shirt and argues at length that murder is a
horrible crime. The digression may be ruled irrelevant to the question at issue
of whether the defendant is guilty of murder. Alleged failures of this type in
argumentation are sometimes quite difficult to judge fairly, and a ruling
should depend on the type of discussion the participants are supposed to be
engaged in. In some cases, conventions or institutional rules of procedure –
e.g. in a criminal trial – are aids to determining whether a line of
argumentation should be judged relevant or not. Petitio principii (asking to be
granted the “principle” or issue of the discussion to be proved), also called
begging the question, is the fallacy of improperly arguing in a circle.
Circular reasoning should not be presumed to be inherently fallacious, but can
be fallacious where the circular argument has been used to disguise or cover up
a failure to fulfill a burden of proof. The problem arises where the conclusion
that was supposed to be proved is presumed within the premises to be granted by
the respondent of the argument. Suppose I ask you to prove that this bicycle
(the ownership of which is subject to dispute) belongs to Hector, and you
reply, “All the bicycles around here belong to Hector.” The problem is that
without independent evidence that shows otherwise, the premise that all the
bicycles belong to Hector takes for granted that this bicycle belongs to
Hector, instead of proving it by properly fulfilling the burden of proof. The
fallacy of many questions (also called the fallacy of complex question) is the
tactic of packing unwarranted presuppositions into a question so that any
direct answer given by the respondent will trap her into conceding these
presuppositions. The classical case is the question, “Have you stopped beating
your spouse?” No matter how the respondent answers, yes or no, she concedes the
presuppositions that (a) she has a spouse, and (b) she has beaten that spouse
at some time. Where one or both of these presumptions are unwarranted in the
given case, the use of this question is an instance of the fallacy of many
questions. The fallacy of equivocation occurs where an ambiguous word has been
used more than once in an argument in such a way that it is plausible to
interpret it in one way in one instance of its use and in another way in
another instance. Such an argument may seem persuasive if the shift in the
context of use of the word makes these differing interpretations plausible.
Equivocation, however, is generally seriously deceptive only in longer
sequences of argument where the meaning of a word or phrase shifts subtly but
significantly. A simplistic example will illustrate the gist of the fallacy:
‘The news media should present all the facts on anything that is in the public
interest; the public interest in lives of movie stars is intense; therefore the
news media should present all the facts on the private lives of movie stars’.
This argument goes from plausible premises to an implausible conclusion by trading
on the ambiguity of ‘public interest’. In one sense informal fallacy informal
fallacy 434 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 434 it means ‘public benefit’
while in another sense it refers to something more akin to curiosity. Amphiboly
(double arrangement) is a type of traditional fallacy (derived from Aristotle’s
list of fallacies) that refers to the use of syntactically ambiguous sentences
like ‘Save soap and waste paper’. Although the logic textbooks often cite
examples of such sentences as fallacies, they have never made clear how they
could be used to deceive in a serious discussion. Indeed, the example cited is
not even an argument, but simply an ambiguous sentence. In cases of some
advertisements like ‘Two pizzas for one special price’, however, one can see
how the amphiboly seriously misleads readers into thinking they are being
offered two pizzas for the regular price of one. Accent is the use of shifting
stress or emphasis in speech as a means of deception. For example, if a speaker
puts stress on the word ‘created’ in ‘All men were created equal’ it suggests
(by implicaturum) the opposite proposition to ‘All men are equal’, namely ‘Not
all men are (now) equal’. The oral stress allows the speaker to covertly
suggest an inference the hearer is likely to draw, and to escape commitment to
the conclusion suggested by later denying he said it. The slippery slope
argument, in one form, counsels against some contemplated action (or inaction)
on the ground that, once taken, it will be a first step in a sequence of events
that will be difficult to resist and will (or may or must) lead to some
dangerous (or undesirable or disastrous) outcome in the end. It is often
argued, e.g., that once you allow euthanasia in any form, such as the
withdrawal of heroic treatments of dying patients in hospitals, then (through
erosion of respect for human life), you will eventually wind up with a
totalitarian state where old, feeble, or politically troublesome individuals
are routinely eliminated. Some slippery slope arguments can be reasonable, but
they should not be put forward in an exaggerated way, supported with
insufficient evidence, or used as a scare tactic.
informatum – “What has
‘forma’ to do with ‘inform’?” – Grice. While etymologically it means ‘to
mould,’ Lewis and Short render ‘informare’ as “to
inform, instruct, educate (syn.: “instruere, instituere): artes quibus aetas
puerilis ad humanitatem informari solet,” Cic. Arch. 3, 4: “animus a natura
bene informatus,” formed, id. Off. 1, 4, 13. I. e. “the soul is well informed
by nature.” Informativus – informational. Grice distinguishes between
the indicative and the informational. “Surely it is stupid to inform myself,
but not Strawson, that it is raining. Grammarians don’t care, but I do!”
information theory, also called communication theory, a primarily mathematical
theory of communication. Prime movers in its development include Claude
Shannon, H. Nyquist, R. V. L. Hartley, Norbert Wiener, Boltzmann, and Szilard.
Original interests in the theory were largely theoretical or applied to
telegraphy and telephony, and early development clustered around engineering
problems in such domains. Philosophers (Bar-Hillel, Dretske, and Sayre, among
others) are mainly interested in information theory as a source for developing
a semantic theory of information and meaning. The mathematical theory has been
less concerned with the details of how a message acquires meaning and more
concerned with what Shannon called the “fundamental problem of communication” –
reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message (that
already has a meaning) selected at another point. Therefore, the two interests
in information – the mathematical and the philosophical – have remained largely
orthogonal. Information is an objective (mind-independent) entity. It can be
generated or carried by messages (words, sentences) or other products of
cognizers (interpreters). Indeed, communication theory focuses primarily on
conditions involved in the generation and transmission of coded (linguistic)
messages. However, almost any event can (and usually does) generate information
capable of being encoded or transmitted. For example, Colleen’s acquiring red
spots can contain information about Colleen’s having the measles and graying
hair can carry information about her grandfather’s aging. This information can
be encoded into messages about measles or aging (respectively) and transmitted,
but the information would exist independently of its encoding or transmission.
That is, this information would be generated (under the right conditions) by
occurrence of the measles-induced spots and the age-induced graying themselves
– regardless of anyone’s actually noticing. This objective feature of
information explains its potential for epistemic and semantic development by
philosophers and cognitive scientists. For example, in its epistemic dimension,
a single (event, message, or Colleen’s spots) that contains informal logic
information theory 435 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 435 (carries) the
information that Colleen has the measles is something from which one (mom,
doctor) can come to know that Colleen has the measles. Generally, an event
(signal) that contains the information that p is something from which one can
come to know that p is the case – provided that one’s knowledge is indeed based
on the information that p. Since information is objective, it can generate what
we want from knowledge – a fix on the way the world objectively is configured.
In its semantic dimension, information can have intentionality or aboutness.
What is happening at one place (thermometer reading rising in Colleen’s mouth)
can carry information about what is happening at another place (Colleen’s body
temperature rising). The fact that messages (or mental states, for that matter)
can contain information about what is happening elsewhere, suggests an exciting
prospect of tracing the meaning of a message (or of a thought) to its
informational origins in the environment. To do this in detail is what a
semantic theory of information is about. The mathematical theory of information
is purely concerned with information in its quantitative dimension. It deals
with how to measure and transmit amounts of information and leaves to others
the work of saying what (how) meaning or content comes to be associated with a
signal or message. In regard to amounts of information, we need a way to
measure how much information is generated by an event (or message) and how to
represent that amount. Information theory provides the answer. Since information
is an objective entity, the amount of information associated with an event is
related to the objective probability (likelihood) of the event. Events that are
less likely to occur generate more information than those more likely to occur.
Thus, to discover that the toss of a fair coin came up heads contains more
information than to discover this about the toss of a coin biased (.8) toward
heads. Or, to discover that a lie was knowingly broadcast by a censored,
state-run radio station, contains less information than that a lie was
knowingly broadcast by a non-censored, free radio station (say, the BBC). A
(perhaps surprising) consequence of associating amounts of information with
objective likelihoods of events is that some events generate no information at all.
That is, that 55 % 3125 or that water freezes at 0oC. (on a specific occasion)
generates no information at all – since these things cannot be otherwise (their
probability of being otherwise is zero). Thus, their occurrence generates zero
information. Shannon was seeking to measure the amount of information generated
by a message and the amount transmitted by its reception (or about average
amounts transmissible over a channel). Since his work, it has become standard
to think of the measure of information in terms of reductions of uncertainty.
Information is identified with the reduction of uncertainty or elimination of
possibilities represented by the occurrence of an event or state of affairs.
The amount of information is identified with how many possibilities are
eliminated. Although other measures are possible, the most convenient and
intuitive way that this quantity is standardly represented is as a logarithm
(to the base 2) and measured in bits (short for how many binary digits) needed
to represent binary decisions involved in the reduction or elimination of
possibilities. If person A chooses a message to send to person B, from among 16
equally likely alternative messages (say, which number came up in a fair
drawing from 16 numbers), the choice of one message would represent 4 bits of
information (16 % 24 or log2 16 % 4). Thus, to calculate the amount of
information generated by a selection from equally likely messages (signals,
events), the amount of information I of the message s is calculated I(s) %
logn. If there is a range of messages (s1 . . . sN) not all of which are
equally likely (letting (p (si) % the probability of any si’s occurrence), the
amount of information generated by the selection of any message si is
calculated I(si) % log 1/p(si) % –log p(si) [log 1/x % –log x] While each of
these formulas says how much information is generated by the selection of a
specific message, communication theory is seldom primarily interested in these
measures. Philosophers are interested, however. For if knowledge that p
requires receiving the information that p occurred, and if p’s occurrence
represents 4 bits of information, then S would know that p occurred only if S
received information equal to (at least) 4 bits. This may not be sufficient for
S to know p – for S must receive the right amount of information in a
non-deviant causal way and S must be able to extract the content of the
information – but this seems clearly necessary. Other measures of information
of interest in communication theory include the average information, or
entropy, of a source, information theory information theory 436 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 436 I(s) % 9p(si) $ I(si), a measure for noise (the
amount of information that person B receives that was not sent by person A),
and for equivocation (the amount of information A wanted or tried to send to B
that B did not receive). These concepts from information theory and the
formulas for measuring these quantities of information (and others) provide a
rich source of tools for communication applications as well as philosophical
applications. informed consent, voluntary agreement in the light of relevant
information, especially by a patient to a medical procedure. An example would
be consent to a specific medical procedure by a competent adult patient who has
an adequate understanding of all the relevant treatment options and their
risks. It is widely held that both morality and law require that no medical
procedures be performed on competent adults without their informed consent. This
doctrine of informed consent has been featured in case laws since the 1950s,
and has been a focus of much discussion in medical ethics. Underwritten by a
concern to protect patients’ rights to self-determination and also by a concern
with patients’ well-being, the doctrine was introduced in an attempt to
delineate physicians’ duties to inform patients of the risks and benefits of
medical alternatives and to obtain their consent to a particular course of
treatment or diagnosis. Interpretation of the legitimate scope of the doctrine
has focused on a variety of issues concerning what range of patients is
competent to give consent and hence from which ones informed consent must be
required; concerning how much, how detailed, and what sort of information must
be given to patients to yield informed consent; and concerning what sorts of
conditions are required to ensure both that there is proper understanding of
the information and that consent is truly voluntary rather than unduly
influenced by the institutional authority of the physician.
IN-SCRIPTVM -- inscriptum -- inscriptionalism -- nominalism. While Grice pours scorn
on the American School of Latter-Day
Nominalists, nominalism, as used by Grice is possibly a misnomer. He
doesn’t mean Occam, and Occam did not use ‘nominalismus.’ “Terminimus’ at most.
So one has to be careful. The implicaturum is that the nominalist calls a
‘name’ what others shouldn’t. Mind,
Grice had two nominalist friends: S. N. Hamphsire (Scepticism and meaning”) and
A. M. Quinton, of the play group! In “Properties and classes,” for the
Aristotelian Society. And the best Oxford philosophical stylist, Bradley, is
also a nominalist. There are other, more specific arguments against universals.
One is that postulating such things leads to a vicious infinite regress. For
suppose there are universals, both monadic and relational, and that when an
entity instantiates a universal, or a group of entities instantiate a
relational universal, they are linked by an instantiation relation. Suppose now
that a instantiates
the universal F. Since
there are many things that instantiate many universals, it is plausible to
suppose that instantiation is a relational universal. But if instantiation is a
relational universal, when a instantiates F, a, F and
the instantiation relation are linked by an instantiation relation. Call this
instantiation relation i2 (and suppose it, as is plausible, to be
distinct from the instantiation relation (i1) that links a and F). Then
since i2 is
also a universal, it looks as if a, F, i1 and i2 will have to
be linked by another instantiation relation i3, and so on ad infinitum.
(This argument has its source in Bradley 1893, 27–8.)
IN-SINUATUM -- insinuatum: Cf. ‘indirectum’ Oddly, Ryle found an ‘insinuation’
abusive, which Russell found abusive. When McGuinness listed the abusive terms
by Gellner, ‘insinuation’ was one of them, so perhaps Grice should take note! insinuation
insinuate. The etymology is abscure. Certainly not Ciceronian. A bit of
linguistic botany, “E implicates that p” – implicate to do duty for, in
alphabetic order: mean, suggest, hint, insinuate, indicate, implicitly convey,
indirectly convey, imply. Intransitive meaning "hint obliquely" is from
1560s. The problem is that Grice possibly used it transitively, with a
‘that’-clause. “Emissor E communicates that p, via insinuation,” i.e. E
insinuates that p.” In fact, there’s nothing odd with the ‘that’-clause
following ‘insinuate.’ Obviosuly, Grice will be saying that what is a mere
insinuation it is taken by Austin, Strawson, Hart or Hare or Hampshire – as he
criticizes him in the “Mind” article on intention and certainty -- (to restrict
to mistakes by the play group) as part of the ‘analysans.’ `Refs. D. Holdcroft,
“Forms of indirect communication,” Journal of Rhetoric, H. P. Grice,
“Communicatum: directum-indirectum.”
Swinehead: “I like
Swinehead – it sounds almost like Grice!” – Grice. Merton school.
solubile -- insolubile: “As
opposed to the ‘piece-of-cake’ solubilia” – Grice. A solubile is a piece of a
cake. An insolubile is a sentences embodying a semantic antinomy such as the
liar paradox. The insolubile is used by philosophers to analyze a self-nullifying
sentences, the possibility that every sentence implies that they are true, and
the relation between a communicatum and an animatum (psi). At first, Grice
focuses on nullification to explicate a sentence like ‘I am lying’ (“Mento.”
“Mendax”) which, when spoken, entails that the utterer “says nothing.” Grice:
“Bradwardine suggests that such a sentence as “Mento” signifies that it is at
once true and false, prompting Burleigh to argue that every sentences implies
that it is true.” “Swineshead uses the insolubile to distinguish between truth and
correspondence to reality.” While ‘This sentence is false’ is itself false, it
corresponds to reality, while its contradiction, ‘This sentence is not false,’
does not, although the latter is also false. “Wyclif uses the insolubile to
describe the senses (or implicatura) in which a sentence can be true, which led
to his belief in the reality of logical beings or entities of reason, a central
tenet of his realism.” “d’Ailly uses the insolubile to explain how the animatum
(or soul) differs from the communicatum, holding that there is no insoluble in
the soul, but that communication lends itself to the phenomenon by admitting a
single sentence corresponding to two distinct states of the soul. Grice: “Of
course that was Swine’s unEnglish overstatement, ‘unsolvable;’ everything is
solvable!” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Liars at Oxford.”
IN-STITUTUM
-- institutum
– Grice speaks of the institution of decision as the goal of conversation --
institution. (1) An organization such as a corporation or college. (2) A social
practice such as marriage or making promises. (3) A system of rules defining a
possible form of social organization, such as capitalist versus Communist
principles of economic exchange. In light of the power of institutions to shape
societies and individual lives, writers in professional ethics have explored
four main issues. First, what political and legal institutions are feasible,
just, and otherwise desirable (Plato, Republic; Rawls, A Theory of Justice)?
Second, how are values embedded in institutions through the constitutive rules
that define them (for example, “To promise is to undertake an obligation”), as
well as through regulatory rules imposed on them from outside, such that to
participate in institutions is a value-laden activity (Searle, Speech Acts,
1969)? Third, do institutions have collective responsibilities or are the only
responsibilities those of individuals, and in general how are the
responsibilities of individuals, institutions, and communities related? Fourth,
at a more practical level, how can we prevent institutions from becoming
corrupted by undue regard for money and power (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981)
and by patriarchal prejudices (Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the
Family, 1989)? -- institutional theory of art, the view that something becomes
an artwork by virtue of occupying a certain position within the context of a
set of institutions. George Dickie originated this theory of art (Art and the
Aesthetic, 1974), which was derived loosely from Arthur Danto’s “The Artworld”
(Journal of Philosophy, 1964). In its original form it was the view that a work
of art is an artifact that has the status of candidate for appreciation
conferred upon it by some person acting on behalf of the art world. That is,
there are institutions – such as museums, galleries, and journals and
newspapers that publish reviews and criticism – and there are individuals who
work within those institutions – curators, directors, dealers, performers,
critics – who decide, by accepting objects or events for discussion and
display, what is art and what is not. The concept of artifactuality may be
extended to include found art, conceptual art, and other works that do not
involve altering some preexisting material, by holding that a use, or context
for display, is sufficient to make something into an artifact. This definition
of art raises certain questions. What determines – independently of such
notions as a concern with art – whether an institution is a member of the art
world? That is, is the definition ultimately circular? What is it to accept
something as a candidate for appreciation? Might not this concept also threaten
circularity, since there could be not only artistic but also other kinds of
appreciation?
instrumentum:
is
Grice an instrumentalist? According to C. Lord (“Griceian instrumentalism”) he
is – but he is not! Lord takes ‘tool’ literally. In Grice’s analysandum of the
act of the communicatum, Lord takes ‘x’ to be a ‘tool’ or instrument for the
production of a response in the emisor’s sendee. But is this the original Roman
meaning of ‘instrumentum’? Griceian aesthetic instrumetalism according to
Catherine Lord. instrumentalism, in its most common meaning, a kind of
anti-realistic view of scientific theories wherein theories are construed as
calculating devices or instruments for conveniently moving from a given set of
observations to a predicted set of observations. As such the theoretical
statements are not candidates for truth or reference, and the theories have no
ontological import. This view of theories is grounded in a positive distinction
between observation statements and theoretical statements, and the according of
privileged epistemic status to the former. The view was fashionable during the
era of positivism but then faded; it was recently revived, in large measure
owing to the genuinely perplexing character of quantum theories in physics.
’Instrumentalism’ has a different and much more general meaning associated with
the pragmatic epistemology of Dewey. Deweyan instrumentalism is a general
functional account of all concepts (scientific ones included) wherein the
epistemic status of concepts and the rationality status of actions are seen as
a function of their role in integrating, predicting, and controlling our
concrete interactions with our experienced world. There is no positivistic
distinction instantiation instrumentalism 438 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM
Page 438 between observation and theory, and truth and reference give way to
“warranted assertability.”
INTER-LEGO: intellectum: The noun is ‘intellectus.’ But what is understood is ‘the
intellectum’ – cf. ‘implicatum’ -- hile the ‘dianoia’ is the intellectus, the
‘intellectum’ is the Griceian diaphanous ‘what is understood.’ (dianoia): Grice
was fascinated by Cicero. “The way he managed to translate the Grecian ‘dia’ by
the ‘inter is genial!” As Short and Lewis have it, it’s from
“inter-legere,” to see into, perceive, understand. “intelligere,” originally meaning to comprehend, appeared
frequently in Cicero, then underwent a slippage in its passive form,
“intelligetur,” toward to understand, to communicate, to mean, ‘to give it to
be understood.’ What is understood – INTELLECTUM -- by an expression can be not
only its obvious sense but also something that is connoted, implied,
insinuated, IMPLICATED, as Grice would prefer. Verstand, corresponding to Greek
dianoia and Latin intellectio] Kant distinguished understanding from
sensibility and reason. While sensibility is receptive, understanding is
spontaneous. While understanding is concerned with the range of phenomena and
is empty without intuition, reason, which moves from judgment to judgment
concerning phenomena, is tempted to extend beyond the limits of experience to
generate fallacious inferences. Kant claimed that the main act of understanding
is judgment and called it a faculty of judgment. He claimed that there is an a
priori concept or category corresponding to each kind of judgment as its
logical function and that understanding is constituted by twelve categories.
Hence understanding is also a faculty of concepts. Understanding gives the
synthetic unity of appearance through the categories. It thus brings together
intuitions and concepts and makes experience possible. It is a lawgiver of
nature. Herder criticized Kant for separating sensibility and understanding.
Fichte and Hegel criticized him for separating understanding and reason. Some
neo-Kantians criticized him for deriving the structure of understanding from
the act of judgment. “Now we can reduce all acts of the understanding to
judgements, and the understanding may therefore be represented as a faculty of
judgement.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Intellectus -- dianoia, Grecian term for
the faculty of thought, specifically of drawing conclusions from assumptions
and of constructing and following arguments. The term may also designate the thought
that results from using this faculty. We would use dianoia to construct a
mathematical proof; in contrast, a being
if there is such a being it would be a god that could simply intuit the truth of the
theorem would use the faculty of intellectual intuition, noûs. In contrast with
noûs, dianoia is the distinctly human faculty of reason. Plato uses noûs and
dianoia to designate, respectively, the highest and second levels of the
faculties represented on the divided line Republic 511de. PLATO. E.C.H. dialectical argument dianoia
233 233 dichotomy paradox. Refs: Grice,
“The criteria of intelligence.”
IN-TENSVM – EX-TENSVM -- intensionalism: Grice finds a way to relieve a predicate that is vacuous
from the embarrassing consequence of denoting or being satisfied by the empty
set. Grice exploits the nonvoidness of a predicate which is part of the
definition of the void predicate. Consider the vacuous predicate:‘... is
married to a daughter of an English queen and a pope.'The class '... is a
daugther of an English queen and a pope.'is co-extensive with the
predicate '... stands in relation to a sequence composed of the
class married to, daughters, English queens, and popes.'We correlate the
void predicate with the sequence composed of relation R, the set ‘married
to,’ the set ‘daughters,’ the set ‘English queens,’ and the set ‘popes.'Grice
uses this sequence, rather than the empty set, to determine the explanatory
potentiality of a void predicate. The admissibility of a nonvoid predicate
in an explanation of a possible phenomenon (why it would happen if it did
happen) may depends on the availability of a generalisation whithin which the
predicate specifies the antecedent condition. A non-trivial
generalisations of this sort is certainly available if derivable from some
further generalisation involving a less specific antecedent condition,
supported by an antecedent condition that is specified by means a nonvoid
predicate. intension,
the meaning or connotation of an expression, as opposed to its extension or denotation,
which consists of those things signified by the expression. The intension of a
declarative sentence is often taken to be a proposition and the intension of a
predicate expression (common noun, adjective) is often taken to be a concept.
For Frege, a predicate expression refers to a concept and the intension or Sinn
(“sense”) of a predicate expression is a mode of presentation distinct from the
concept. Objects like propositions or concepts that can be the intension of
terms are called intensional objects. (Note that ‘intensional’ is not the same
word as ‘intentional’, although the two are related.) The extension of a
declarative sentence is often taken to be a state of affairs and that of a
predicate expression to be the set of objects that fall under the concept which
is the intension of the term. Extension is not the same as reference. For
example, the term ‘red’ may be said to refer to the property redness but to
have as its extension the set of all red things. Alternatively properties and
relations are sometimes taken to be intensional objects, but the property
redness is never taken to be part of the extension of the adjective ‘red’.
intensionality, failure of extensionality. A linguistic context is extensional
if and only if the extension of the expression obtained by placing any
subexpression in that context is the same as the extension of the expression
obtained by placing in that context any subexpression with the same extension
as the first subexpression. Modal, intentional, and direct quotational contexts
are main instances of intensional contexts. Take, e.g., sentential contexts.
The extension of a sentence is its truth or falsity (truth-value). The
extension of a definite description is what it is true of: ‘the husband of
Xanthippe’ and ‘the teacher of Plato’ have the same extension, for they are
true of the same man, Socrates. Given this, it is easy to see that
‘Necessarily, . . . was married to Xanthippe’ is intensional, for ‘Necessarily,
the husband of Xanthippe was married to Xanthippe’ is true, but ‘Necessarily,
the teacher of Plato was married to Xanthippe’ is not. Other modal terms that
generate intensional contexts include ‘possibly’, ‘impossibly’, ‘essentially’,
‘contingently’, etc. Assume that Smith has heard of Xanthippe but not Plato.
‘Smith believes that . . . was married to Xanthippe’ is intensional, for ‘Smith
believes that the husband of Xanthippe was married to Xanthippe’ is true, but
‘Smith believes that the teacher of Plato was married to Xanthippe’ is not.
Other intentional verbs that generate intensional contexts include ‘know’,
‘doubt’, ‘wonder’, ‘fear’, ‘intend’, ‘state’, and ‘want’. ‘The fourth word in
“. . . “ has nine letters’ is intensional, for ‘The fourth word in “the husband
of Xanthippe” has nine letters’ is true but ‘the fourth word in “the teacher of
Plato” has nine letters’ is not. intensional logic, that part of deductive
logic which treats arguments whose validity or invalidity depends on strict
difference, or identity, of meaning. The denotation of a singular term (i.e., a
proper name or definite description), the class of things of which a predicate
is true, and the truth or falsity (the truth-value) of a sentence may be called
the extensions of these respective linguistic expressions. Their intensions are
their meanings strictly so called: the (individual) concept conveyed by the
singular term, the property expressed by the predicate, and the proposition
asserted by the sentence. The most extensively studied part of formal logic
deals largely with inferences turning only on extensions. One principle of
extensional logic is that if two singular terms have identical denotations, the
truth-values of corresponding sentences containing the terms are identical.
Thus the inference from ‘Bern is the capital of Switzerland’ to ‘You are in
Bern if and only if you are in the capital of Switzerland’ is valid. But this
is invalid: ‘Bern is the capital of Switzerland. Therefore, you believe that
you are in Bern if and only if you believe that you are in the capital of Switzerland.’
For one may lack the belief instrumental rationality intensional logic 439
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 439 that Bern is the capital of
Switzerland. It seems that we should distinguish between the intensional
meanings of ‘Bern’ and of ‘the capital of Switzerland’. One supposes that only
a strict identity of intension would license interchange in such a context, in
which they are in the scope of a propositional attitude. It has been questioned
whether the idea of an intension really applies to proper names, but parallel
examples are easily constructed that make similar use of the differences in the
meanings of predicates or of whole sentences. Quite generally, then, the
principle that expressions with the same extension may be interchanged with
preservation of extension of the containing expression, seems to fail for such
“intensional contexts.” The range of expressions producing such sensitive
contexts includes psychological verbs like ‘know’, ‘believe’, ‘suppose’,
‘assert’, ‘desire’, ‘allege’, ‘wonders whether’; expressions conveying modal
ideas such as necessity, possibility, and impossibility; some adverbs, e.g.
‘intentionally’; and a large number of other expressions – ’prove’, ‘imply’,
‘make probable’, etc. Although reasoning involving some of these is well
understood, there is not yet general agreement on the best methods for dealing
with arguments involving many of these notions.
IN-TENSVUM -- intentionalism: Grice analyses ‘intend’ in two prongs; the first is a
willing-clause, and the second is a causal clause about the willing causing the
action. It’s a simplified account that he calls Prichardian because he relies
on ‘willin that.’ The intender intends that some action takes place. It does
not have to be an action by the intender. Cf. Suppes’s specific section. when
Anscombe comes out with her “Intention,” Grice’s Play Group does not know what
to do. Hampshire is almost finished with his “Thought and action” that came out
the following year. Grice is lecturing on how a “dispositional” reductive
analysis of ‘intention’ falls short of his favoured instrospectionalism. Had he
not fallen for an intention-based semantics (or strictly, an analysis of
"U means that p" in terms of U intends that p"), Grice
would be obsessed with an analysis of ‘intending that …’ James makes an
observation about the that-clause. I will that the distant table slides over
the floor toward me. It does not. The Anscombe Society. Irish-born Anscombe’s
views are often discussed by Oxonian philosophers. She brings Witters to the
Dreaming Spires, as it were. Grice is especially connected with Anscombes
reflections on intention. While he favoures an approach such as that of
Hampshire in Thought and Action, Grice borrows a few points from Anscombe, notably
that of direction of fit, originally Austin’s. Grice explicitly refers to
Anscombe in “Uncertainty,” and in his reminiscences he hastens to add that
Anscombe would never attend any of the Saturday mornings of the play group, as
neither does Dummett. The view of Ryle is standardly characterised as a
weaker or softer version of behaviourism According to this standard
interpretation, the view by Ryle is that a statements containin this or that
term relating to the ‘soul’ can be translated, without loss of meaning, into an
‘if’ utterance about what an agent does. So Ryle, on this account, is to be
construed as offering a dispositional analysis of a statement about the soul
into a statement about behaviour. It is conceded that Ryle does not confine a
description of what the agent does to purely physical behaviour—in terms, e. g.
of a skeletal or a muscular description. Ryle is happy to speak of a
full-bodied action like scoring a goal or paying a debt. But the soft
behaviourism attributed to Ryle still attempts an analysis or translation of
statement about the soul into this or that dispositional statement which is
itself construed as subjunctive if describing what the agent does. Even this
soft behaviourism fails. A description of the soul is not analysable or
translatable into a statement about behaviour or praxis even if this
is allowed to include a non-physical descriptions of action. The list of
conditions and possible behaviour is infinite since any one proffered
translation may be ‘defeated,’ as Hart and Hall would say, by a slight
alteration of the circumstances. The defeating condition in any particular case
may involve a reference to a fact about the agent’s soul, thereby rendering the
analysis circular. In sum, the standard interpretation of Ryle construes him as
offering a somewhat weakened form of reductive behaviourism whose reductivist
ambition, however weakened, is nonetheless futile. This characterisation
of Ryle’s programme is wrong. Although it is true that he is keen to point out
the disposition behind this or that concept about the soul, it would be wrong
to construe Ryle as offering a programme of analysis of a ‘soul’ predicate in
terms of an ‘if’ utterance. The relationship between a ‘soul’ predicate and the
‘if’ utterance with which he unpack it is other than that required by this kind
of analysis. It is helpful to keep in mind that Ryle’s target is the
official doctrine with its eschatological commitment. Ryle’s argument serves to
remind one that we have in a large number of cases ways of telling or settling
disputes, e. g., about someone’s character or intellect. If A disputes a
characterisation of Smith as willing that p, or judging that p, B may point to
what Smith says and does in defending the attribution, as well as to features
of the circumstances. But the practice of giving a reason of this kind to
defend or to challenge an ascription of a ‘soul’ predicates would be put under
substantial pressure if the official doctrine is correct. For Ryle to
remind us that we do, as a matter of fact, have a way of settling disputes
about whether Smith wills that he eat an apple is much weaker than saying that
the concept of willing is meaningless unless it is observable or verifiable; or
even that the successful application of a soul predicate requires that we have
a way of settling a dispute in every case. Showing that a concept is one for
which, in a large number of cases, we have an agreement-reaching procedure,
even if it do not always guarantee success, captures an important point,
however: it counts against any theory of, e. g., willing that would render it
unknowable in principle or in practice whether or not the concept is
correctly applied in every case. And this is precisely the problem with the
official doctrine (and is still a problem, with some of its progeny. Ryle
points out that there is a form of dilemma that pits the reductionist against
the dualist: those whose battle-cry is ‘nothing but…’ and those who insist
on ‘something else as well.’ Ryle attempts a dissolution of the dilemma by
rejecting the two horns; not by taking sides with either one, though part of
what dissolution requires in this case, as in others, is a description of how
each side is to be commended for seeing what the other side does not, and
criticised for failing to see what the other side does. The attraction of
behaviourism, Ryle reminds us, is simply that it does not insist on an occult
happening as the basis upon which a ‘soul’ term is given meaning, and points to
a perfectly observable criterion that is by and large employed when we are
called upon to defend or correct our employment of a ‘soul’ term. The problem
with behaviourism is that it has a too-narrow view both of what counts as
behaviour and of what counts as observable. Then comes Grice to play with
meaning and intending, and allowing for deeming an avowal of this or that souly
state as, in some fashion, incorrigible. For Grice, while U does have, ceteris
paribus privileged access to each state of his soul, only his or that avowal of
this or that souly state is deemed incorrigible. This concerns communication as
involving intending. Grice goes back to this at Brighton. He plays with G
judges that it is raining, G judges that G judges that it is raining. Again,
Grice uses a subscript: “G judges2 that it is raining.” If now G
expresses that it is raining, G judges2 that it is raining. A
second-order avowal is deemed incorrigible. It is not surprising the the
contemporary progeny of the official doctrine sees a behaviourist in Grice. Yet
a dualist is badly off the mark in his critique of Grice. While Grice does
appeal to a practice and a habif, and even the more technical ‘procedure’ in
the ordinary way as ‘procedure’ is used in ordinary discussion. Grice does not
make a technical concept out of them as one expect of some behavioural
psychologist, which he is not. He is at most a philosophical psychologist, and
a functionalist one, rather than a reductionist one. There is nothing in any
way that is ‘behaviourist’ or reductionist or physicalist about Grice’s talk.
It is just ordinary talk about behaviour. There is nothing exceptional in
talking about a practice, a customs, or a habit regarding communication. Grice
certainly does not intend that this or that notion, as he uses it, gives anything
like a detailed account of the creative open-endedness of a
communication-system. What this or that anti-Griceian has to say IS essentially
a diatribe first against empiricism (alla Quine), secondarily against a
Ryle-type of behaviourism, and in the third place, Grice. In more reasoned and
dispassionate terms, one would hardly think of Grice as a behaviourist (he in
fact rejects such a label in “Method”), but as an intentionalist. When we call
Grice an intentionalist, we are being serious. As a modista, Grice’s keyword is
intentionalism, as per the good old scholastic ‘intentio.’ We hope so. This is
Aunt Matilda’s conversational knack. Grice keeps a useful correspondence with
Suppes which was helpful. Suppes takes Chomsky more seriously than an Oxonian
philosopher would. An Oxonian philosopher never takes Chomsky too seriously. Granted,
Austin loves to quote “Syntactic Structures” sentence by sentence for fun,
knowing that it would never count as tutorial material. Surely “Syntactic
Structures” would not be a pamphlet a member of the play group would use to
educate his tutee. It is amusing that when he gives the Locke lectures, Chomsky
cannot not think of anything better to do but to criticise Grice, and citing him
from just one reprint in the collection edited by, of all people, Searle. Some
gratitude. The references are very specific to Grice. Grice feels he needs to
provide, he thinks, an analysis ‘mean’ as metabolically applied to an expression.
Why? Because of the implicaturum. By uttering x (thereby explicitly conveying
that p), U implicitly conveys that q iff U relies on some procedure in his and
A’s repertoire of procedures of U’s and A’s communication-system. It is this
talk of U’s being ‘ready,’ and ‘having a procedure in his repertoire’ that
sounds to New-World Chomsky too Morrisian, as it does not to an Oxonian.
Suppes, a New-Worlder, puts himself in Old-Worlder Grice’s shoes about this. Chomsky
should never mind. When an Oxonian philosopher, not a psychologist, uses ‘procedure’
and ‘readiness,’ and having a procedure in a repertoire, he is being Oxonian
and not to be taken seriously, appealing to ordinary language, and so on.
Chomsky apparently does get it. Incidentally, Suppess has defended Grice
against two other targets, less influential. One is Hungarian-born J. I. Biro,
who does not distinguish between reductive analysis and reductionist analysis,
as Grice does in his response to Somervillian Rountree-Jack. The other target
is perhaps even less influential: P. Yu in a rather simplistic survey of the
Griceian programme for a journal that Grice finds too specialized to count, “Linguistics
and Philosophy.” Grice is always ashamed and avoided of being described as “our
man in the philosophy of language.” Something that could only have happened in
the Old World in a red-brick university, as Grice calls it. Suppes contributes to PGRICE with an
excellent ‘The primacy of utterers meaning,’ where he addresses what he rightly
sees as an unfair characterisations of Grice as a behaviourist. Suppes’s use of
“primacy” is genial, since its metabole which is all about. Biro actually responds
to Suppes’s commentary on Grice as proposing a reductive but not reductionist
analysis of meaning. Suppes rightly characterises Grice as an Oxonian ‘intentionalist’
(alla Ogden), as one would characterize Hampshire, with philosophical
empiricist, and slightly idealist, or better ideationalist, tendencies, rather.
Suppes rightly observes that Grice’ use of such jargon is meant to impress.
Surely there are more casual ways of referring to this or that utterer having a
basic procedure in his repertoire. It is informal and colloquial, enough,
though, rather than behaviouristically, as Ryle would have it. Grice is very
happy that in the New World Suppes teaches him how to use ‘primacy’ with a
straight face! Intentionalism is also all the vogue in Collingwood reading
Croce, and Gardiner reading Marty via Ogden, and relates to expression. In his
analysis of intending Grice is being very Oxonian, and pre-Austinian: relying,
just to tease leader Austin, on Stout, Wilson, Bosanquet, MacMurray, and
Pritchard. Refs.: There are two sets of essays. An early one on ‘disposition
and intention,’ and the essay for The British Academy (henceforth, BA). Also
his reply to Anscombe and his reply to Davidson. There is an essay on the
subjective condition on intention. Obviously, his account of communication has
been labeled the ‘intention-based semantic’ programme, so references under
‘communication’ above are useful. BANC.Grice's reductIOn, or partial reduction
anyway, of meamng to intention places a heavy load on the theory of intentions.
But in the articles he has written about these matters he has not been very
explicit about the structure of intentIOns. As I understand his position on
these matters, it is his view that the defence of the primacy of utterer's
meaning does not depend on having worked out any detailed theory of intention.
It IS enough to show how the reduction should be thought of in a schematic
fashion in order to make a convincing argument. I do think there is a fairly
straightforward extenSIOn of Grice's ideas that provides the right way of
developing a theory of intentIOns appropnate for Ius theory of utterer's
meaning. Slightly changing around some of the words m Grice we have the
following The Primacy of Utterer's Meaning 125 example. U utters '''Fido is
shaggy", if "U wants A to think that U thinks that Jones's dog is
hairy-coated.'" Put another way, U's intention is to want A to think U
thinks that Jones's dog is hairy-coated. Such intentions clearly have a
generative structure similar but different from the generated syntactic
structure we think of verbal utterances' having. But we can even say that the
deep structures talked about by grammarians of Chomsky's ilk could best be
thought of as intentions. This is not a suggestion I intend to pursue
seriously. The important point is that it is a mistake to think about
classifications of intentions; rather, we should think in terms of mechanisms
for generating intentions. Moreover, it seems to me that such mechanisms in the
case of animals are evident enough as expressed in purposeful pursuit of prey
or other kinds of food, and yet are not expressed in language. In that sense
once again there is an argument in defence of Grice's theory. The primacy of
utterer's meaning has primacy because of the primacy of intention. We can have
intentions without words, but we cannot have words of any interest without
intentions. In this general context, I now turn to Biro's (1979) interesting
criticisms of intentionalism in the theory of meaning. Biro deals from his own
standpoint with some of the issues I have raised already, but his central
thesis about intention I have not previously discussed. It goes to the heart of
controversies about the use of the concept of intention to explain the meaning
of utterances. Biro puts his point in a general way by insisting that utterance
meaning must be separate from and independent of speaker's meaning or, in the
terminology used here, utterer's meaning. The central part of his argument is
his objection to the possibility of explaining meaning in terms of intentions.
Biro's argument goes like this: 1. A central purpose of speech is to enable
others to learn about the speaker's intentions. 2. It will be impossible to
discover or understand the intentions of the speaker unless there are
independent means for understanding what he says, since what he says will be
primary evidence about his intentions. 3. Thus the meaning of an utterance must
be conceptually independent of the intentions of the speaker. This is an
appealing positivistic line. The data relevant to a theory or hypothesis must
be known independently of the hypothesis. Biro is quick to state that he is not
against theoretical entities, but the way in which he separates theoretical
entities and observable facts makes clear the limited role he wants them to
play, in this case the theoretical entities being intentions. The central idea
is to be found in the following passage: The point I am insisting on here is
merely that the ascription of an intention to an agent has the character of an
hypothesis, something invoked to explain phenomena which may be described
independently of that explanation (though not necessarily independently of the
fact that they fall into a class for which the hypothesis in question generally
or normally provides an explanation). (pp. 250-1.) [The italics are Biro's.]
Biro's aim is clear from this quotation. The central point is that the data
about intentions, namely, the utterance, must be describable independently of
hypotheses about the intentions. He says a little later to reinforce this: 'The
central pointis this: it is the intention-hypothesis that is revisable, not the
act-description' (p. 251). Biro's central mistake, and a large one too, is to
think that data can be described independently of hypotheses and that somehow
there is a clean and simple version of data that makes such description a
natural and inevitable thing to have. It would be easy enough to wander off
into a description of such problems in physics, where experiments provide a
veritable wonderland of seemingly arbitrary choices about what to include and
what to exclude from the experimental experience as 'relevant data', and where
the arbitrariness can only be even partly understood on the basis of
understanding the theories bemg tested. Real data do not come in simple linear
strips like letters on the page. Real experiments are blooming confusions that
never get sorted out completely but only partially and schematically, as
appropriate to the theory or theories being tested, and in accordance with the
traditions and conventions of past similar experiments. makes a point about the
importance of convention that I agree but it is irrelevant to my central of
controversy with What I say about
experiments is even more true of undisciplined and unregulated human
interactiono Experiments, especially in physics, are presumably among the best
examples of disciplined and structured action. Most conversations, in contrast,
are really examples of situations of confusion that are only straightened out
under strong hypotheses of intentions on the of speakers and listeners as well.
There is more than one level at which the takes The Primacy of Utterer's
Meaning 127 place through the beneficent use of hypotheses about intentions. I
shall not try to deal with all of them here but only mention some salient
aspects. At an earlier point, Biro says:The main reason for introducing
intentions into some of these analyses is precisely that the public (broadly
speaking) features of utterances -the sounds made, the circumstances in which
they are made and the syntactic and semantic properties of these noises
considered as linguistic items-are thought to be insufficient for the
specification of that aspect of the utterance which we call its meaning. [po
244.] If we were to take this line of thought seriously and literally, we would
begin with the sound pressure waves that reach our ears and that are given the
subtle and intricate interpretation required to accept them as speech. There is
a great variety of evidence that purely acoustical concepts are inadequate for
the analysis of speech. To determine the speech content of a sound pressure
wave we need extensive hypotheses about the intentions that speakers have in
order to convert the public physical features of utterances into intentional
linguistic items. Biro might object at where I am drawing the line between
public and intentional, namely, at the difference between physical and
linguistic, but it would be part of my thesis that it is just because of
perceived and hypothesized intentions that we are mentally able to convert
sound pressure waves into meaningful speech. In fact, I can envisage a kind of
transcendental argument for the existence of intentions based on the
impossibility from the standpoint of physics alone of interpreting sound
pressure waves as speech. Biro seems to have in mind the nice printed sentences
of science and philosophy that can be found on the printed pages of treatises
around the world. But this is not the right place to begin to think about
meaning, only the end point. Grice, and everybody else who holds an intentional
thesis about meaning, recognizes the requirement to reach an account of such
timeless sentence meaning or linguistic meaning.In fact, Grice is perhaps more
ready than I am to concede that such a theory can be developed in a relatively
straightforward manner. One purpose of my detailed discussion of congruence of
meaning in the previous section is to point out some of the difficulties of
having an adequate detailed theory of these matters, certainly an adequate
detailed theory of the linguistic meaning or the sentence meaning. Even if I
were willing to grant the feasibility of such a theory, I would not grant the
use of it that Biro has made. For the purposes of this discussion printed text
may be accepted as well-defined, theoryindependent data. (There are even issues
to be raised about the printed page, but ones that I will set aside in the
present context. I have in mind the psychological difference between perception
of printed letters, words, phrases, or sentences, and that of related but
different nonlinguistic marks on paper.) But no such data assumptions can be
made about spoken speech. Still another point of attack on Biro's positivistic
line about data concerns the data of stress and prosody and their role in
fixing the meaning of an utterance. Stress and prosody are critical to the
interpretation of the intentions of speakers, but the data on stress and
prosody are fleeting and hard to catch on the fly_ Hypotheses about speakers'
intentions are needed even in the most humdrum interpret atins of what a given
prosodic contour or a given point of stress has contributed to the meaning of
the utterance spoken. The prosodic contour and the points of stress of an
utterance are linguistic data, but they do not have the independent physical
description Biro vainly hopes for. Let me put my point still another way. I do
not deny for a second that conventions and traditions of speech play a role in
fixing the meaning of a particular utterance on a particular occasion. It is
not a matter of interpretmg afresh, as if the universe had just begun, a
particular utterance in terms of particular intentions at that time and place
without dependence upon past prior mtentions and the traditions of spoken
speech that have evolved in the community of which the speaker and listener are
a part. It is rather that hypotheses about intentions are operating continually
and centrally in the interpretation of what is said. Loose, live speech depends
upon such active 'on-line' interpretation of intention to make sense of what
has been said. If there were some absolutely agreed-upon concept of firm and
definite linguistlc meaning that Biro and others could appeal to, then it might
be harder to make the case I am arguing for. But I have already argued in the
discussion of congruence of meaning that this is precisely what is not the
case. The absence of any definite and satisfactory theory of linguistic meaning
argues also for movmg back to the more concrete and psychologically richer
concept of utterer's meaning. This is the place to begin the theory of meaning,
and this Itself rests to a very large extent on the concept of intention --
intention, (1) a characteristic of action, as when one acts intentionally or
with a certain intention; (2) a feature of one’s mind, as when one intends (has
an intention) to act in a certain way now or in the future. Betty, e.g.,
intentionally walks across the room, does so with the intention of getting a drink,
and now intends to leave the party later that night. An important question is:
how are (1) and (2) related? (See Anscombe, Intention, 1963, for a
groundbreaking treatment of these and other basic problems concerning
intention.) Some philosophers see acting with an intention as basic and as
subject to a three-part analysis. For Betty to walk across the room with the
intention of getting a drink is for Betty’s walking across the room to be
explainable (in the appropriate way) by her desire or (as is sometimes said)
pro-attitude in favor of getting a drink and her belief that walking across the
room is a way of getting one. On this desire-belief model (or wantbelief model)
the main elements of acting with an intention are (a) the action, (b)
appropriate desires (pro-attitudes) and beliefs, and (c) an appropriate
explanatory relation between (a) and (b). (See Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and
Causes” in Essays on Actions and Events, 1980.) In explaining (a) in terms of
(b) we give an explanation of the action in terms of the agent’s purposes or
reasons for so acting. This raises the fundamental question of what kind of
explanation this is, and how it is related to explanation of Betty’s movements
by appeal to their physical causes. What about intentions to act in the future?
Consider Betty’s intention to leave the party later. Though the intended action
is later, this intention may nevertheless help explain some of Betty’s planning
and acting between now and then. Some philosophers try to fit such futuredirected
intentions directly into the desire-belief model. John Austin, e.g., would
identify Betty’s intention with her belief that she will leave later because of
her desire to leave (Lectures on Jurisprudence, vol. I, 1873). Others see
futuredirected intentions as distinctive attitudes, not to be reduced to
desires and/or beliefs. How is belief related to intention? One question here
is whether an intention to A requires a belief that one will A. A second
question is whether a belief that one will A in executing some intention
ensures that one intends to A. Suppose that Betty believes that by walking
across the room she will interrupt Bob’s conversation. Though she has no desire
to interrupt, she still proceeds across the room. Does she intend to interrupt
the conversation? Or is there a coherent distinction between what one intends
and what one merely expects to bring about as a result of doing what one
intends? One way of talking about such cases, due to Bentham (An Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789), is to say that Betty’s
walking across the room is “directly intentional,” whereas her interrupting the
conversation is only “obliquely intentional” (or indirectly intentional). --
intentional fallacy, the (purported) fallacy of holding that the meaning of a
work of art is fixed by the artist’s intentions. (Wimsatt and Beardsintensive
magnitude intentional fallacy 440 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 440 ley,
who introduced the term, also used it to name the [purported] fallacy that the artist’s
aims are relevant to determining the success of a work of art; however, this
distinct usage has not gained general currency.) Wimsatt and Beardsley were
formalists; they held that interpretation should focus purely on the work of
art itself and should exclude appeal to biographical information about the
artist, other than information concerning the private meanings the artist
attached to his words. Whether the intentional fallacy is in fact a fallacy is
a much discussed issue within aesthetics. Intentionalists deny that it is: they
hold that the meaning of a work of art is fixed by some set of the artist’s
intentions. For instance, Richard Wollheim (Painting as an Art) holds that the
meaning of a painting is fixed by the artist’s fulfilled intentions in making
it. Other intentionalists appeal not to the actual artist’s intentions, but to
the intentions of the implied or postulated artist, a construct of criticism,
rather than a real person. See also AESTHETIC FORMALISM, AESTHETICS, INTENTION.
B.Ga. intentionality, aboutness. Things that are about other things exhibit
intentionality. Beliefs and other mental states exhibit intentionality, but so,
in a derived way, do sentences and books, maps and pictures, and other
representations. The adjective ‘intentional’ in this philosophical sense is a
technical term not to be confused with the more familiar sense, characterizing
something done on purpose. Hopes and fears, for instance, are not things we do,
not intentional acts in the latter, familiar sense, but they are intentional
phenomena in the technical sense: hopes and fears are about various things. The
term was coined by the Scholastics in the Middle Ages, and derives from the
Latin verb intendo, ‘to point (at)’ or ‘aim (at)’ or ‘extend (toward)’. Phenomena
with intentionality thus point outside of themselves to something else:
whatever they are of or about. The term was revived by the nineteenth-century
philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, who claimed that intentionality
defines the distinction between the mental and the physical; all and only
mental phenomena exhibit intentionality. Since intentionality is an irreducible
feature of mental phenomena, and since no physical phenomena could exhibit it,
mental phenomena could not be a species of physical phenomena. This claim,
often called the Brentano thesis or Brentano’s irreducibility thesis, has often
been cited to support the view that the mind cannot be the brain, but this is
by no means generally accepted today. There was a second revival of the term in
the 1960s and 1970s by analytic philosophers, in particular Chisholm, Sellars,
and Quine. Chisholm attempted to clarify the concept by shifting to a logical
definition of intentional idioms, the terms used to speak of mental states and
events, rather than attempting to define the intentionality of the states and
events themselves. Intentional idioms include the familiar “mentalistic” terms
of folk psychology, but also their technical counterparts in theories and
discussions in cognitive science, ‘X believes that p,’ and ‘X desires that q’
are paradigmatic intentional idioms, but according to Chisholm’s logical
definition, in terms of referential opacity (the failure of substitutivity of
coextensive terms salva veritate), so are such less familiar idioms as ‘X
stores the information that p’ and ‘X gives high priority to achieving the
state of affairs that q’. Although there continue to be deep divisions among
philosophers about the proper definition or treatment of the concept of
intentionality, there is fairly widespread agreement that it marks a feature –
aboutness or content – that is central to mental phenomena, and hence a
central, and difficult, problem that any theory of mind must solve.
INTER-SUB-IAECTVM
-- intersubjective
– Grice: “Who was the first Grecian philosopher to philosophise on
conversational intersubjectivity? Surely Plato! Socrates is just his alter ego
– and after Aeschylus, there is always a ‘deuterogonist’”! conversational
intersubjectivity. Philosophical sociology – While Grice saw himself as a
philosophical psychologist, he would rather be seen dead than as a
philosophical sociologist – ‘intersubjective at most’! -- Comte: A. philosopher
and sociologist, the founder of positivism. He was educated in Paris at l’École
Polytechnique, where he briefly taught mathematics. He suffered from a mental
illness that occasionally interrupted his work. In conformity with empiricism,
Comte held that knowledge of the world arises from observation. He went beyond
many empiricists, however, in denying the possibility of knowledge of
unobservable physical objects. He conceived of positivism as a method of study
based on observation and restricted to the observable. He applied positivism
chiefly to science. He claimed that the goal of science is prediction, to be
accomplished using laws of succession. Explanation insofar as attainable has
the same structure as prediction. It subsumes events under laws of succession;
it is not causal. Influenced by Kant, he held that the causes of phenomena and
the nature of things-in-themselves are not knowable. He criticized metaphysics
for ungrounded speculation about such matters; he accused it of not keeping
imagination subordinate to observation. He advanced positivism for all the
sciences but held that each science has additional special methods, and has
laws not derivable by human intelligence from laws of other sciences. He
corresponded extensively with J. S. Mill, who Comte, Auguste Comte, Auguste
168 168 encouraged his work and
discussed it in Auguste Comte and Positivism 1865. Twentieth-century logical
positivism was inspired by Comte’s ideas. Comte was a founder of sociology,
which he also called social physics. He divided the science into two
branches statics and dynamics dealing
respectively with social organization and social development. He advocated a
historical method of study for both branches. As a law of social development,
he proposed that all societies pass through three intellectual stages, first
interpreting phenomena theologically, then metaphysically, and finally
positivistically. The general idea that societies develop according to laws of
nature was adopted by Marx. Comte’s most important work is his six-volume Cours
de philosophie positive Course in Positive Philosophy, 183042. It is an encyclopedic
treatment of the sciences that expounds positivism and culminates in the
introduction of sociology.
INTER-VENTUM -- intervention -- intervening
variable, in Grice’s philosophical psychology, a state of an organism, person or,
as Grice prefers, a ‘pirot,’ (vide his ‘pirotology’) or ‘creature,’ postulated
to explain the pirot’s behaviour and defined in ‘functioanlist,’ Aristotelian
terms of its cause (perceptual input) and effect (the behavioural output to be
explained by attribution of a state of the ‘soul’) rather than its intrinsic
properties. A food drive or need for nuts, in a squarrel (as Grice calls his
‘Toby’) conceived as an intervening variable, is defined in terms of the number
of hours without food (the cause) and the strength or robustness of efforts to
secure it (effect).. The squarrel’s feeling hungry (‘needing a nut), is no
longer an intrinsic property – the theoretical term ‘need’ is introduced in a
ramseyified sentence by describing – and it need not be co-related to a state
in the brain – since there is room for variable realisability. Grice sees at least
three reasons for postulating an intervening variable (like the hours without
nut-hobbling). First, time lapse between stimulus (perceptual input) and
behavioural output may be large, as when an animal – even a squirrel -- eats
food found hours earlier. Why did not the animal hobble the nut when it first
found it? Perhaps at the time of discovery, the squarrel had already eaten, so
food drive (the squarrel’s need) is reduced. Second, Toby may act differently
in the same sort of situation, as when Toby hobbles a nut at noon one day but
delay until sunset the next. Again, this may be because of variation in food
drive or the squarrel’s need. Third, behaviour may occur in the absence of
external stimulation or perceptual input, as when Toby forages for nut for the
winter. This, too, may be explained by the strength of the food drive or
squarrel’s need. An intervening variables has been viewed, as Grice notes
reviewing Oxonian philosophical psychology from Stout to Ryle via Prichard) depending
on the background theory, as a convenient ‘fiction’ (as Ramsey, qua theoretical
construct) or as a psychologically real state, or as a physically real state
with multiple realisability conditions. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Method in
philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre,” in “The Conception of
value.”
IN-TUITUM -- intuitum: Grice: “At Oxford,
the tutor teaches to trust your ‘intuition’ – and will point to the cognateness
of ‘tutor’ and ‘in-tuition’!” – tŭĕor , tuĭtus, 2 ( I.perf. only post-Aug.,
Quint. 5, 13, 35; Plin. Ep. 6, 29, 10; collat. form tūtus, in the part., rare,
Sall. J. 74, 3; Front. Strat. 2, 12, 13; but constantly in the P. a.; inf.
parag. tuerier, Plaut. Rud. 1, 4, 35; collat. form acc. to the 3d conj. tŭor ,
Cat. 20, 5; Stat. Th. 3, 151: “tuĕris,” Plaut. Trin. 3, 2, 82: “tuimur,” Lucr.
1, 300; 4, 224; 4, 449; “6, 934: tuamur,” id. 4, 361: “tuantur,” id. 4, 1004;
imper. tuĕre, id. 5, 318), v. dep. a. [etym. dub.], orig., to see, to look or
gaze upon, to watch, view; hence, pregn., to see or look to, to defend,
protect, etc.: tueri duo significat; unum ab aspectu, unde est Ennii illud:
tueor te senex? pro Juppiter! (Trag. v. 225 Vahl.); “alterum a curando ac
tutela, ut cum dicimus bellum tueor et tueri villam,” Varr. L. L. 7, § 12 Müll.
sq.—Accordingly, I. To look at, gaze at, behold, watch, view, regard, consider,
examine, etc. (only poet.; syn.: specto, adspicio, intueor): quam te post
multis tueor tempestatibus, Pac. ap. Non. 407, 32; 414, 3: “e tenebris, quae
sunt in luce, tuemur,” Lucr. 4, 312: “ubi nil aliud nisi aquam caelumque
tuentur,” id. 4, 434: “caeli templa,” id. 6, 1228 al.: “tuendo Terribiles
oculos, vultum, etc.,” Verg. A. 8, 265; cf. id. ib. 1, 713: “talia dicentem jam
dudum aversa tuetur,” id. ib. 4, 362: “transversa tuentibus hircis,” id. E. 3,
8: “acerba tuens,” looking fiercely, Lucr. 5, 33; cf. Verg. A. 9, 794: “torva,”
id. ib. 6, 467.— (β). With object-clause: “quod multa in terris fieri caeloque
tuentur (homines), etc.,” Lucr. 1, 152; 6, 50; 6, 1163.— II. Pregn., to look
to, care for, keep up, uphold, maintain, support, guard, preserve, defend,
protect, etc. (the predom. class. signif. of the word; cf.: “curo, conservo,
tutor, protego, defendo): videte, ne ... vobis turpissimum sit, id, quod
accepistis, tueri et conservare non posse,” Cic. Imp. Pomp. 5, 12: “ut quisque
eis rebus tuendis conservandisque praefuerat,” Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 63, 140:
“omnia,” id. N. D. 2, 23, 60: “mores et instituta vitae resque domesticas ac
familiares,” id. Tusc. 1, 1, 2: “societatem conjunctionis humanae munifice et
aeque,” id. Fin. 5, 23, 65: “concordiam,” id. Att. 1, 17, 10: rem et gratiam et
auctoritatem suam, id. Fam. 13, 49, 1: “dignitatem,” id. Tusc. 2, 21, 48: “L.
Paulus personam principis civis facile dicendo tuebatur,” id. Brut. 20, 80:
“personam in re publicā,” id. Phil. 8, 10, 29; cf.: tuum munus, Planc. ap. Cic.
Fam. 10, 11, 1: “tueri et sustinere simulacrum pristinae dignitatis,” Cic. Rab.
Post. 15, 41: “aedem Castoris P. Junius habuit tuendam,” to keep in good order,
Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 50, § 130; cf. Plin. Pan. 51, 1: “Bassum ut incustoditum nimis
et incautum,” id. Ep. 6, 29, 10: “libertatem,” Tac. A. 3, 27; 14, 60: “se,
vitam corpusque tueri,” to keep, preserve, Cic. Off. 1, 4, 11: “antea majores
copias alere poterat, nunc exiguas vix tueri potest,” id. Deiot. 8, 22: “se ac
suos tueri,” Liv. 5, 4, 5: “sex legiones (re suā),” Cic. Par. 6, 1, 45:
“armentum paleis,” Col. 6, 3, 3: “se ceteris armis prudentiae tueri atque
defendere,” to guard, protect, Cic. de Or. 1, 38, 172; cf.: “tuemini castra et
defendite diligenter,” Caes. B. C. 3, 94: “suos fines,” id. B. G. 4, 8:
“portus,” id. ib. 5, 8: “oppidum unius legionis praesidio,” id. B. C. 2, 23:
“oram maritimam,” id. ib. 3, 34: “impedimenta,” to cover, protect, Hirt. B. G.
8, 2.—With ab and abl.: “fines suos ab excursionibus et latrociniis,” Cic.
Deiot. 8, 22: “domum a furibus,” Phaedr. 3, 7, 10: mare ab hostibus, Auct. B.
Afr. 8, 2.—With contra: “quos non parsimoniā tueri potuit contra illius
audaciam,” Cic. Prov. Cons. 5, 11: “liberūm nostrorum pueritiam contra
inprobitatem magistratuum,” Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 58, § 153; Quint. 5, 13, 35; Plin.
20, 14, 54, § 152; Tac. A. 6, 47 (41).—With adversus: “tueri se adversus
Romanos,” Liv. 25, 11, 7: “nostra adversus vim atque injuriam,” id. 7, 31, 3:
“adversus Philippum tueri Athenas,” id. 31, 9, 3; 42, 46, 9; 42, 23, 6: “arcem
adversus tres cohortes tueri,” Tac. H. 3, 78; Just. 17, 3, 22; 43, 3, 4.—In
part. perf.: “Verres fortiter et industrie tuitus contra piratas Siciliam
dicitur,” Quint. 5, 13, 35 (al. tutatus): “Numidas in omnibus proeliis magis
pedes quam arma tuta sunt,” Sall. J. 74, 3.!*? 1. Act. form tŭĕo , ēre:
“censores vectigalia tuento,” Cic. Leg. 3, 3, 7: “ROGO PER SVPEROS, QVI ESTIS,
OSSA MEA TVEATIS,” Inscr. Orell. 4788.— 2. tŭĕor , ēri, in pass. signif.:
“majores nostri in pace a rusticis Romanis alebantur et in bello ab his
tuebantur,” Varr. R. R. 3, 1, 4; Lucr. 4, 361: “consilio et operā curatoris
tueri debet non solum patrimonium, sed et corpus et salus furiosi,” Dig. 27,
10, 7: “voluntas testatoris ex bono et aequo tuebitur,” ib. 28, 3, 17.—Hence,
tūtus , a, um, P. a. (prop. well seen to or guarded; hence), safe, secure, out
of danger (cf. securus, free from fear). A. Lit. (α). Absol.: “nullius res
tuta, nullius domus clausa, nullius vita saepta ... contra tuam cupiditatem,”
Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 15, § 39: “cum victis nihil tutum arbitrarentur,” Caes. B. G.
2, 28: “nec se satis tutum fore arbitratur,” Hirt. B. G. 8, 27; cf.: “me
biremis praesidio scaphae Tutum per Aegaeos tumultus Aura feret,” Hor. C. 3,
29, 63; Ov. M. 8, 368: “tutus bos rura perambulat,” Hor. C. 4, 5, 17: “quis
locus tam firmum habuit praesidium, ut tutus esset?” Cic. Imp. Pomp. 11, 31:
“mare tutum praestare,” id. Fl. 13, 31: “sic existimabat tutissimam fore
Galliam,” Hirt. B. G. 8, 54: “nemus,” Hor. C. 1, 17, 5: “via fugae,” Cic.
Caecin. 15, 44; cf.: “commodior ac tutior receptus,” Caes. B. C. 1, 46:
“perfugium,” Cic. Rep. 1, 4, 8: “tutum iter et patens,” Hor. C. 3, 16, 7:
“tutissima custodia,” Liv. 31, 23, 9: “praesidio nostro pasci genus esseque
tutum,” Lucr. 5, 874: “vitam consistere tutam,” id. 6, 11: “tutiorem et
opulentiorem vitam hominum reddere,” Cic. Rep. 1, 2, 3: est et fideli tuta
silentio Merces, secure, sure (diff. from certa, definite, certain), Hor. C. 3,
2, 25: “tutior at quanto merx est in classe secundā!” id. S. 1, 2, 47: “non est
tua tuta voluntas,” not without danger, Ov. M. 2, 53: “in audaces non est
audacia tuta,” id. ib. 10, 544: “externā vi non tutus modo rex, sed invictus,”
Curt. 6, 7, 1: “vel tutioris audentiae est,” Quint. 12, prooem. § 4: “
cogitatio tutior,” id. 10, 7, 19: “fuit brevitas illa tutissima,” id. 10, 1,
39: “regnum et diadema tutum Deferens uni,” i. e. that cannot be taken away,
Hor. C. 2, 2, 21: male tutae mentis Orestes, i. e. unsound, = male sanae, id.
S. 2, 3, 137: quicquid habes, age, Depone tutis auribus, qs. carefully guarded,
i. e. safe, faithful, id. C. 1, 27, 18 (cf. the opp.: auris rimosa, id. S. 2,
6, 46).—Poet., with gen.: “(pars ratium) tuta fugae,” Luc. 9, 346.— (β). With
ab and abl.: tutus ab insidiis inimici, Asin. ap. Cic. Fam. 10, 31, 2: “ab
insidiis,” Hor. S. 2, 6, 117: “a periculo,” Caes. B. G. 7, 14: “ab hoste,” Ov.
H. 11, 44: “ab hospite,” id. M. 1, 144: “a conjuge,” id. ib. 8, 316: “a ferro,”
id. ib. 13, 498: “a bello, id. H. (15) 16, 344: ab omni injuriā,” Phaedr. 1, 31,
9.— (γ). With ad and acc.: “turrim tuendam ad omnis repentinos casus tradidit,”
Caes. B. C. 3, 39: “ad id, quod ne timeatur fortuna facit, minime tuti sunt
homines,” Liv. 25, 38, 14: “testudinem tutam ad omnes ictus video esse,” id.
36, 32, 6.— (δ). With adversus: “adversus venenorum pericula tutum corpus suum
reddere,” Cels. 5, 23, 3: “quo tutiores essent adversus ictus sagittarum,”
Curt. 7, 9, 2: “loci beneficio adversus intemperiem anni tutus est,” Sen. Ira,
2, 12, 1: “per quem tutior adversus casus steti,” Val. Max. 4, 7, ext. 2:
“quorum praesidio tutus adversus hostes esse debuerat,” Just. 10, 1, 7.—(ε) With abl.:
incendio fere tuta est Alexandria, Auct. B. Alex. 1, 3.— b. Tutum est, with a
subj. -clause, it is prudent or safe, it is the part of a prudent man: “si
dicere palam parum tutum est,” Quint. 9, 2, 66; 8, 3, 47; 10, 3, 33: “o nullis
tutum credere blanditiis,” Prop. 1, 15, 42: “tutius esse arbitrabantur,
obsessis viis, commeatu intercluso sine ullo vulnere victoriā potiri,” Caes. B.
G. 3, 24; Quint. 7, 1, 36; 11, 2, 48: “nobis tutissimum est, auctores plurimos
sequi,” id. 3, 4, 11; 3, 6, 63.— 2. As subst.: tūtum , i, n., a place of
safety, a shelter, safety, security: Tr. Circumspice dum, numquis est, Sermonem
nostrum qui aucupet. Th. Tutum probe est, Plaut. Most. 2, 2, 42: “tuta et
parvula laudo,” Hor. Ep. 1, 15, 42: “trepidum et tuta petentem Trux aper
insequitur,” Ov. M. 10, 714: “in tuto ut collocetur,” Ter. Heaut. 4, 3, 11:
“esse in tuto,” id. ib. 4, 3, 30: “ut sitis in tuto,” Cic. Fam. 12, 2, 3: “in
tutum eduxi manipulares meos,” Plaut. Most. 5, 1, 7: “in tutum receptus est,”
Liv. 2, 19, 6.— B. Transf., watchful, careful, cautious, prudent (rare and not
ante-Aug.; “syn.: cautus, prudens): serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque
procellae,” Hor. A. P. 28: “tutus et intra Spem veniae cautus,” id. ib. 266:
“non nisi vicinas tutus ararit aquas,” Ov. Tr. 3, 12, 36: “id suā sponte,
apparebat, tuta celeribus consiliis praepositurum,” Liv. 22, 38, 13: “celeriora
quam tutiora consilia magis placuere ducibus,” id. 9, 32, 3.—Hence, adv. in two
forms, tūtē and tūtō , safely, securely, in safety, without danger. a. Posit.
(α). Form tute (very rare): “crede huic tute,” Plaut. Trin. 1, 2, 102: “eum
tute vivere, qui honeste vivat,” Auct. Her. 3, 5, 9: “tute cauteque agere,” id.
ib. 3, 7, 13.— (β). Form tuto (class. in prose and poetry): “pervenire,” Plaut.
Mil. 2, 2, 70; Lucr. 1, 179: “dimicare,” Caes. B. G. 3, 24: “tuto et libere
decernere,” id. B. C. 1, 2: “ut tuto sim,” in security, Cic. Fam. 14, 3, 3: “ut
tuto ab repentino hostium incursu etiam singuli commeare possent,” Caes. B. G.
7, 36. — b. Comp.: “ut in vadis consisterent tutius,” Caes. B. G. 3, 13:
“tutius et facilius receptus daretur,” id. B. C. 2, 30: “tutius ac facilius id
tractatur,” Quint. 5, 5, 1: “usitatis tutius utimur,” id. 1, 5, 71: “ut ubivis
tutius quam in meo regno essem,” Sall. J. 14, 11.— c. Sup. (α). Form tutissime:
nam te hic tutissime puto fore, Pomp. ap. Cic. Att. 8, 11, A.— (β). Form
tutissimo: “quaerere, ubi tutissimo essem,” Cic. Att. 8, 1, 2; cf. Charis. p.
173 P.: “tutissimo infunduntur oboli quattuor,” Plin. 20, 3, 8, § 14. Grice was
especially interested in the misuses of intuition. He found that J. L. Austin
(born in Lancaster) had “Northern intuitions.” “I myself have proper
heart-of-England intuitions.” “Strawson has Cockney intuitions.” “I wonder how
we conducted those conversations on Saturday mornings!” “Strictly, an
intuition is a non-inferential knowledge or grasp, as of a proposition,
concept, or entity, that is not based on perception, memory, or introspection;
also, the capacity in virtue of which such cognition is possible. A person
might know that 1 ! 1 % 2 intuitively, i.e., not on the basis of inferring it
from other propositions. And one might know intuitively what yellow is, i.e.,
might understand the concept, even though ‘yellow’ is not definable. Or one
might have intuitive awareness of God or some other entity. Certain mystics
hold that there can be intuitive, or immediate, apprehension of God. Ethical
intuitionists hold both that we can have intuitive knowledge of certain moral
concepts that are indefinable, and that certain propositions, such as that
pleasure is intrinsically good, are knowable through intuition. Self-evident
propositions are those that can be seen (non-inferentially) to be true once one
fully understands them. It is often held that all and only self-evident
propositions are knowable through intuition, which is here identified with a
certain kind of intellectual or rational insight. Intuitive knowledge of moral
or other philosophical propositions or concepts has been compared to the
intuitive knowledge of grammaticality possessed by competent users of a
language. Such language users can know immediately whether certain sentences
are grammatical or not without recourse to any conscious reasoning. Refs.: H.
P. Grice, “My intutions.” BANC.
ionian-sea-coast philosophy: Grice, “Or
mar ionio, as the Italians have it!” -- the characteristically naturalist and
rationalist thought of Grecian philosophers of the sixth and fifth centuries
B.C. who were active in Ionia, the region of ancient Greek colonies on the
coast of Asia Minor and adjacent islands. First of the Ionian philosophers were
the three Milesians. Grice: “It always amused me that they called themselves
Ionians, but then Williams, who founded Providence in the New World, called
himself an Englishman!”. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “The relevance of Ionian
philosophy today.”
iron-age
metaphysics:
Euclidean geometry, the version of geometry that includes among its axioms the
parallel axiom, which asserts that, given a line L in a plane, there exists
just one line in the plane that passes through a point not on L but never meets
L. The phrase ‘Euclidean geometry’ refers both to the doctrine of geometry to
be found in Euclid’s Elements fourth century B.C. and to the mathematical
discipline that was built on this basis afterward. In order to present
properties of rectilinear and curvilinear curves in the plane and solids in
space, Euclid sought definitions, axioms, ethics, divine command Euclidean
geometry 290 290 and postulates to
ground the reasoning. Some of his assumptions belonged more to the underlying
logic than to the geometry itself. Of the specifically geometrical axioms, the
least self-evident stated that only one line passes through a point in a plane
parallel to a non-coincident line within it, and many efforts were made to
prove it from the other axioms. Notable forays were made by G. Saccheri, J.
Playfair, and A. M. Legendre, among others, to put forward results logically
contradictory to the parallel axiom e.g., that the sum of the angles between
the sides of a triangle is greater than 180° and thus standing as candidates
for falsehood; however, none of them led to paradox. Nor did logically
equivalent axioms such as that the angle sum equals 180° seem to be more or
less evident than the axiom itself. The next stages of this line of reasoning
led to non-Euclidean geometry. From the point of view of logic and rigor,
Euclid was thought to be an apotheosis of certainty in human knowledge; indeed,
‘Euclidean’ was also used to suggest certainty, without any particular concern
with geometry. Ironically, investigations undertaken in the late nineteenth
century showed that, quite apart from the question of the parallel axiom,
Euclid’s system actually depended on more axioms than he had realized, and that
filling all the gaps would be a formidable task. Pioneering work done
especially by M. Pasch and G. Peano was brought to a climax in 9 by Hilbert,
who produced what was hoped to be a complete axiom system. Even then the axiom
of continuity had to wait for the second edition! The endeavor had consequences
beyond the Euclidean remit; it was an important example of the growth of
axiomatization in mathematics as a whole, and it led Hilbert himself to see
that questions like the consistency and completeness of a mathematical theory
must be asked at another level, which he called metamathematics. It also gave
his work a formalist character; he said that his axiomatic talk of points,
lines, and planes could be of other objects. Within the Euclidean realm,
attention has fallen in recent decades upon “neo-Euclidean” geometries, in
which the parallel axiom is upheld but a different metric is proposed. For
example, given a planar triangle ABC, the Euclidean distance between A and B is
the hypotenuse AB; but the “rectangular distance” AC ! CB also satisfies the
properties of a metric, and a geometry working with it is very useful in, e.g.,
economic geography, as anyone who drives around a city will readily
understand. Grice:
"Much the most significant opposition to my type of philosophising comes
from those like Baron Russell who feel that ‘ “ordinary-language” philosophy’
is an affront to science and to intellectual progress, and who regard exponents
like me as wantonly dedicating themselves to what the Baron calls 'stone-age
metaphysics', "The Baron claims that 'stone-age metaphysics' is the best
that can be dredged up from a ‘philosophical’ study of an ‘ordinary’ language,
such as Oxonian, as it ain't. "The use made of Russell’s phrase
‘stone-age metaphysics’ has more rhetorical appeal than argumentative
force."“Certainly ‘stone-age’ *physics*, if by that we mean a
'primitive' (as the Baron puts it -- in contrast to 'iron-age physics') set of
hypotheses about how the world goes which might conceivably be embedded somehow
or other in an ‘ordinary’ language such as Oxonian, does not seem to be a
proper object for first-order devotion -- I'll grant the Baron that!"“But
this fact should *not* prevent something derivable or extractable
from ‘stone-age’ (if not 'iron-age') *physics*, perhaps some very
general characterization of the nature of reality, from being a proper target
for serious research.”"I would not be surprised if an extractable
characterization of this may not be the same as that which is extractable from,
or that which underlies, the Baron's favoured iron-age physics!" iron-age physics: Grice on Russellian
compresence, an unanalyzable relation in terms of which Russell, in his later
writings especially in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, 8, took concrete
particular objects to be analyzable. Concrete particular objects are analyzable
in terms of complexes of qualities all of whose members are compresent.
Although this relation can be defined only ostensively, Russell states that it
appears in psychology as “simultaneity in one experience” and in physics as
“overlapping in space-time.” Complete complexes of compresence are complexes of
qualities having the following two properties: 1 all members of the complex are
compresent; 2 given anything not a member of the complex, there is at least one
member of the complex with which it is not compresent. He argues that there is
strong empirical evidence that no two complete complexes have all their
qualities in common. Finally, space-time pointinstants are analyzed as complete
complexes of compresence. Concrete particulars, on the other hand, are analyzed
as series of incomplete complexes of compresence related by certain causal
laws.
SEQUITVR/NON-SEQVITVR
-- non sequitur
--: irrationality, unreasonableness. Whatever it entails, irrationality can
characterize belief, desire, intention, and action. intuitions irrationality
443 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 443 Irrationality is often explained in
instrumental, or goal-oriented, terms. You are irrational if you (knowingly)
fail to do your best, or at least to do what you appropriately think adequate,
to achieve your goals. If ultimate goals are rationally assessable, as
Aristotelian and Kantian traditions hold, then rationality and irrationality
are not purely instrumental. The latter traditions regard certain specific
(kinds of) goals, such as human well-being, as essential to rationality. This
substantialist approach lost popularity with the rise of modern decision
theory, which implies that, in satisfying certain consistency and completeness
requirements, one’s preferences toward the possible outcomes of available
actions determine what actions are rational and irrational for one by
determining the personal utility of their outcomes. Various theorists have
faulted modern decision theory on two grounds: human beings typically lack the
consistent preferences and reasoning power required by standard decision theory
but are not thereby irrational, and rationality requires goods exceeding
maximally efficient goal satisfaction. When relevant goals concern the
acquisition of truth and the avoidance of falsehood, epistemic rationality and
irrationality are at issue. Otherwise, some species of non-epistemic
rationality or irrationality is under consideration. Species of non-epistemic
rationality and irrationality correspond to the kind of relevant goal: moral,
prudential, political, economic, aesthetic, or some other. A comprehensive
account of irrationality will elucidate epistemic and non-epistemic
irrationality as well as such sources of irrationality as weakness of will and
ungrounded belief.
esse:“est” (“Homo
animale rationalis est” – Aristotle, cited by Grice in “Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being”) – “is” is the third person singular form of the verb
‘be’, with at least three fundamental usages that philosophers distinguish
according to the resources required for a proper semantic representation. First,
there is the ‘is’ of existence, which Grice finds otiose – “Marmaduke Bloggs is
a journalist who climbed Mt Everest on hands and knees – a typical invention by
journalists”. (There is a unicorn in the garden: Dx (Ux8Gx)) uses the
existential quantifier. Bellerophon’s dad: “There is a flying horse in the
stable.” “That’s mine, dad.” – Then, second, there is the ‘is’ of identity
(Hesperus is Phosphorus: j % k) employs the predicate of identity, or dyadic
relation of “=,” as per Leibniz’s problem – “The king of France” – Kx = Ky.
Then third there is the ‘is’ of predication, which can be essential (izzing) or
accidentail (hazzing). (Samson is strong: Sj) merely juxtaposes predicate
symbol and proper name. Some controversy attends the first usage. Some (notably
that eccentric philosopher that went by the name of Meinong) maintain that ‘is’
applies more broadly than ‘exists.’ “Is” produces truths when combined with
‘deer’ and ‘unicorn.’ ‘Exists,’ rather than ‘is’, produces a truth when
combined with ‘deer’ -- but not ‘unicorn’. Aquinas takes “esse” to denote some
special activity that every existing thing necessarily performs, which would seem
to imply that with ‘est’ they attribute more to an object than we do with
‘exists’. Other issues arise in connection with the second usage. Does, e.g. “Hesperus
is Phosphorus,” attribute anything more to the heavenly body than its identity
with itself? Consideration of such a question leads Frege, wrongly to conclude,
in what Ryle calls the “Fido”-Fido theory of meaning that names (and other
meaningful expressions) of ordinary language have a “sense” or “mode of
presenting” the thing to which they refer that representations within our
standard, extensional logical systems fail to expose. The distinction between
the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of predication parallels Frege’s distinction
between ‘objekt” and concept: words signifying objects stand to the right of
the ‘is’ of identity and those signifying concepts stand to the right of the
‘is’ of predication. Although it seems remarkable that so many deep and
difficult philosophical concepts should link to a single short and commonplace
word, we should perhaps not read too much into that observation. Grecian and
Roman indeed divide the various roles played by English’s compact copula among
several constructions, but there are dialects, even within Oxford, that use the
expression “is” for other purposes. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being.”
-ism: used by Grice
derogatorily. In his ascent to the City of the Eternal Truth, he meets twelve
–isms, which he orders alphabetically. These are: Empiricism. Extensionalism.
Functionalism. MaterialismMechanism. Naturalism. Nominalism. Phenomenalism.
Positivism. Physicalism. Reductionism. Scepticism. Grice’s implicaturum is that
each is a form of, er, minimalism, as opposed to maximalism. He also seems to
implicate that, while embracing one of those –isms is a reductionist vice,
embracing their opposites is a Christian virtue – He explicitly refers to the
name of Bunyan’s protagonist, “Christian” – “in a much more publicized journey,
I grant.” So let’s see how we can correlate each vicious heathen ism with the
Griceian Christian virtuous ism. Empiricism. “Surely not all is experience. My
bones are not.” Opposite: Rationalism. Extensionalism. Surely the empty set
cannot end up being the fullest! Opposite Intensionalism. Functionalism. What
is the function of love? We have to extend functionalism to cover one’s concern
for the other – And also there’s otiosity. Opposite: Mentalism. Materialism –
My bones are ‘hyle,’ but my eternal soul isn’t. Opposite Spiritualism. Mechanism – Surely there is finality in
nature, and God designed it. Opposite Vitalism. Naturalism – Surely Aristotle
meant something by ‘ta meta ta physica,’ There is a transnatural realm.
Opposite: Transnaturalism. Nominalism.
Occam was good, except with his ‘sermo mentalis.’ Opposite: Realism.
Phenomenalism – Austin and Grice soon realised that Berlin was wrong. Opposite
‘thing’-language-ism. Positivism – And then there’s not. Opposite: Negativism. Physicalism – Surely my soul is not a brain
state. Opposite: Transnaturalism, since Physicalismm and Naturalism mean the
same thing, ony in Greek, the other in Latin. Reductionism – Julie is wrong when she thinks
I’m a reductionist. Opposite: Reductivism. Scepticism: Surely there’s common sense.
Opposite: Common-Sensism. Refs: H. P. Grice, “Prejudices and predilections;
which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice,” The Grice Papers, BANC.
isocrates – Grice: “the
chief rival of Plato.” A pupil of Socrates and also of Gorgias, Isocrates founds
a play group or club in Athens – vide H. P. Grice, “Athenian dialectic” -- that
attracts many aristocrats. Many of Isocrates’s philosophy touches on
‘dialectic.’ “Against the Sophists and On the Antidosis are most important in
this respect. “On the antidosis” stands to Isocrates as the “Apology” of Plato
stands to Socrates, a defense of Socrates against an attack not on his life,
but on his property. The aim of Isocrates’s philosophy is good judgment in practical
affairs, and he believes his contribution to Greece through education more valuable
than legislation could possibly be. Isocrates repudiates instruction in
theoretical (what he called ‘otiose’) philosophy, and insisted on
distinguishing his teaching of rhetoric from the sophistry that gives clever
speakers an unfair advantage. In politics Isocrates is a Panhellenic patriot,
and urges the warring Greek city-states to unite under strong leadership and
take arms against the Persian Empire. His most famous work, and the one in
which he took the greatest pride, is the “Panegyricus,” a speech in praise of
Athens. In general, Isocrates supports democracy in Athens, but toward the end
of his life complained bitterly of abuses of the system.
Istituto italiano
per gli studi filosofici: the title is telling, This is an institute for
philosophical studies, aka ‘research.’ Cf. Witters, “Philosophische
untersuchungen,” translated as ‘investigations.’ Grice prefers ‘studio,’ as in
‘studi’ (Studies in the way of words).
italicus -- italiano: Italian philosophy. Grice loved it and
could recite an Italian philosopher for each letter of the alphabet, including
the famous Alessandro Speranza, from Milano! Grice: “Of course there is a
longtitudinal unity between Graeco-Roman philosophy and Italian philosophy;
Italian after all IS Latin. I experienced the ‘inglese italianato, diavolo
incarnato’ at Oxford – especially with the ‘aesthetes.’!” Grice: “Short and Lewis have an entry for “Italicus,”
which unhelpfully render as “Italian”!” --. Grice: “In any case, Italians don’t
use ‘Italian’ much – they prefer ‘Roman,’ as in ‘Graeco-Roman.’” an evolution from Roman, or Latin. A
topic that fascinated Grice. Grice: “Most of Italian philosophical vocabulary,
if not all, is Roman in origin. There
are a few terms from Etrurian, and even fewer from Uscan. This is good, because
Anglo-Saxon, like Roman, are Aryan, so the roots have a bite with an Englishman
like me.” Grice: “Most Italians regard ‘Italian’ as a universal. There’s
Tuscan, and Ligurian, and Venetian. But no Italian!” Grice: “There is a continuity between Roman
and Italian (or vernacular, as the Italians prefer). Some Italian snobs call
Italian the ‘volgare,’ but then vulgus is Deutsche, the people!” --. Italian:
Grice: “Latin is a member of the Italic family of the Indo-European Languages.
Romantic is another.” -- H. P. Grice:
“It’s absurd the little Oxonians know about Italy – it’s all about the Grand
Tour! The only Oxonian seriously into things Italian, that I know of, are
Collingwood, Bosanquet, and the fashionable Hegelians!” “As a response, I propose
to lecture on Italian philosophy, with a view to implicature.” Italy over the ages has had a vast influence on
Western philosophy, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, and going onto
Renaissance humanism, the Age of Enlightenment and modern philosophy. Philosophy is brought to Italy by Pythagoras,
founder of the Italian school of philosophy in Crotone. Major Italian philosophers of the Grecian period
include: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Empedocles, and, lastly, Gorgias, responsible for bringing philosophy to
Athens. There are several
formidable Roman philosophers, such as: Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Clement of Alexandria, Alcinous, Sextus Empiricus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Themistius, Augustine of Hippo, Proclus, Philoponus of Alexandria, Damascius, Boethius, and Simplicius of Cilicia. Roman philosophy is heavily influenced by that
of Greece. Italian mediaeval
philosophy is mainly Christian, and includes several important philosophers and
theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas is a student of Albert the Great, a
brilliant Dominican experimentalist, much like the Franciscan Roger Bacon of
Oxford. Aquinas reintroduces
Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity. Aquinas believes that there is no contradiction
between faith and secular reason. Aquinas believes that Aristotle achieves the
pinnacle in the human striving for truth, and thus adopts Aristotle's
philosophy as a framework in constructing his theological and philosophical
outlook. Aquinas is a professor
at the prestigious University of Paris. The Renaissance is an essentially Italian
(Florentine) movement, and also a great period of the arts and philosophy. Among the distinctive elements of Renaissance
philosophy are: — the revival
(renaissance means "rebirth") of classical civilisation and learning. — a partial return to the authority of Plato
over Aristotle, who had come to dominate later medieval philosophy; and — among some philosophers, enthusiasm for the
occult and Hermeticism. As with all periods,
there is a wide drift of dates, reasons for categorization and boundaries. In particular, the Renaissance, more than later
periods, is thought to begin in Italy with the Italian Renaissance and roll
through Europe. Renaissance Humanism was
a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the
Renaissance, beginning in Florence, and affected most of Italy. The humanist movement develops from the
rediscovery by European scholars of Latin literary and Greek literary texts. Initially, a humanist was simply a scholar or
teacher of Latin literature. Humanism describes a curriculum – the “studia humanitatis” –
consisting of grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry, and history, as
studied via Latin and Greek literary authors. Humanism offers the necessary intellectual and
philological tools for the first critical analysis of texts. An early triumph of textual criticism by Lorenzo
Valla reveals the Donation of Constantine to be an early medieval forgery
produced in the Curia. This textual criticism
creates sharper controversy when Erasmus follows Valla in criticising the
accuracy of the Vulgate translation of the New Testament, and promoting
readings from the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Italian Renaissance humanists believe that the
liberal arts (art, music, grammar, rhetoric, oratory, history, poetry, using
classical texts, and the studies of all of the above) should be practiced by
all levels of "richness". Italian humanists also approve of self, human
worth and individual dignity. Italian humanists hold the belief that everything in life has a
determinate nature, but man's privilege is to be able to choose his own path. Pico della Mirandola writes the following
concerning the creation of the universe and man's place in it: “But when the work was finished, the Craftsman
kept wishing that there were someone to ponder the plan of so great a work, to
love its beauty, and to wonder at its vastness.” “Therefore, when everything was done, He finally
took thought concerning the creation of man.” “He therefore took man as a creature of
indeterminate nature and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world,
addressed him thus.” “”Neither a fixed abode
nor a form that is thine alone nor any function peculiar to thyself have we
given thee, Adam, to the end that according to thy longing and according to thy
judgement thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form and what functions
thou thyself shalt desire.”” “”The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within
the bounds of law.”” “”Thou shalt have the
power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish.”” “”Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul's
judgement, to be born into the higher forms, which are divine."” Italy is also affected by a movement called
Neoplatonism, which is a movement which had a general revival of interest in
Classical antiquity. Interest in Platonism is
especially strong in Florence under the Medici. During the sessions at Florence of the Council
of Ferrara-Florence, during the failed attempts to heal the schism of the
Orthodox and Catholic churches, Cosimo de' Medici and his intellectual circle
make acquaintance with the Neoplatonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon. Plethon’s discourses upon Plato and the
Alexandrian mystics so fascinate the learned society of Florence that they name
him the second Plato. John Argyropoulos is
lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence, and Marsilio Ficino
becomes his pupil. When Cosimo de’ Medici
decides to refound Plato's Academy at Florence, his choice to head it is
Ficino, who makes the classic translation of Plato from Greek to Latin, as well
as a translation of a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents of the Hermetic
Corpus, and the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, for example Porphyry,
Iamblichus, Plotinus, et al.. Following suggestions laid out by Gemistos Plethon, Ficino tries
to synthesize Christianity and Platonism. Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli is an Italian
philosopher, and is considered one of the most influential Italian Renaissance
philosophers and one of the main founders of modern political science. Machiavelli’s most famous work is “The Prince.” “The Prince”’s contribution to the history of
political thought is the fundamental break between political realism and
political idealism. Machiavelli’s best-known
essay exposits and describes the arts with which a ruling prince can maintain
control of his realm. The essay concentrates
on the "new prince", under the presumption that a hereditary prince
has an easier task in ruling, since the people are accustomed to him. To retain power, the hereditary prince must
carefully maintain the socio-political institutions to which the people are
accustomed; whereas a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling, since
he must first stabilize his new-found power in order to build an enduring
political structure. That requires the prince
being a public figure above reproach, whilst privately acting immorally to maintain
his state. The examples are those
princes who most successfully obtain and maintain power, drawn from
Machiavelli’s observations as a Florentine diplomat, and his ancient history
readings; thus, the Latin phrases and Classic examples. “The Prince” politically defines “virtu” as any
quality that helps a prince rule his state effectively. Machiavelli is aware of the irony of good
results coming from evil actions, and because of this, the Catholic Church
proscribes “The Prince,” registering it to the “Index Librorum Prohibitorum,”
moreover, the Humanists also viewed the essay negatively, among them, Erasmus
of Rotterdam. As a treatise, the
primary intellectual contribution of Machiavelli’s “Prince” to the history of
political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and
political Idealism — thus, “The Prince” is a manual
to acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, a
Classical ideal society is not the aim of the prince’s will to power. As a political philosopher, Machiavelli
emphasises necessary, methodical exercise of brute force and deception to
preserve the status quo. Between Machiavelli's
advice to ruthless and tyrannical princes in “The Prince” and his more
republican exhortations in “Discorsi,” some conclude that “The Prince” is
actually only a satire. Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
for instance, admires Machiavelli the republican and, consequently, argues that
“The Prince” is an essay for the republicans as it exposes the methods used by
princes. If “The Prince” is only
intended as a manual for tyrannical rulers, it contains a paradox: It is apparently more effective if the secrets
“The Prince” contains would *not* be made publicly available. Also Antonio Gramsci argues that Machiavelli's
audience is the common people because the rulers already know these methods
through their education. This interpretation is
supported by the fact that Machiavelli writes in the vernacular, Italian, not
in Latin (which would have been the language of the ruling elite). Although Machiavelli is supposed to be a
realist, many of his heroes in “The Prince” are in fact mythical or
semi-mythical, and his goal (i.e. the unification of Italy) essentially utopian
at the time of writing. Many of Machiavelli’s
contemporaries associate him with the political tracts offering the idea of
“Reason of State”, an idea proposed most notably in the writings of Jean Bodin
and Giovanni Botero. To this day,
contemporary usage of “Machiavellian” is an adjective describing someone who is
"marked by cunning, duplicty, or bad faith.” “The Prince” is the treatise that is most
responsible for the term being brought about. To this day, "Machiavellian" remains a
popular term used in casual and political contexts, while in psychology,
"Machiavellianism" denotes a personality type. Cesare Beccaria is one of the greatest writers
of the Italian Age of Enlightenment. Italy is also affected by the enlightenment, a
movement which is a consequence of the Renaissance and changes the road of
Italian philosophy. Followers of the group
often meet to discuss in private salons and coffeehouses, notably in the cities
of Milan, Rome and Venice. Cities with important
universities such as Padua, Bologna and Naples, however, also remain great
centres of scholarship and the intellect, with several philosophers, such as
Giambattista Vico (who is widely regarded as being the founder of modern
Italian philosophy) and Antonio Genovesi. Italian society also dramatically changes during
the Enlightenment, with rulers such as Leopold II of Tuscany abolishing the
death penalty. The church's power is
significantly reduced, and it is a period of great thought and invention, with
scientists such as Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani discovering new things
and greatly contributing to Western science. Beccaria is also one of the greatest Italian
Enlightenment writers, who is famous for his masterpiece “Of Crimes and
Punishments.” Italy also has a
renowned philosophical movement with Idealism, Sensism and Empiricism. The main Sensist Italian philosophers are Gioja
and Romagnosi. Criticism of the Sensist
movement comes from other philosophers such as Pasquale Galluppi, who affirms
that a priori relationships are synthetic. Antonio Rosmini, instead, is the founder of
Italian Idealism. The most comprehensive
view of Rosmini's philosophical standpoint is to be found in his “Sistema
filosofico,” in which he sets forth the conception of a complete encyclopaedia
of the human knowable, synthetically conjoined, according to the order of
ideas, in a perfectly harmonious whole. Contemplating the position of recent philosophy
from Locke to Hegel, and having his eye directed to the ancient and fundamental
problem of the origin, truth and certainty of our ideas, Rosmini writes: “If philosophy is to be restored to love and
respect, I think it will be necessary, in part, to return to the teachings of
the ancients, and in part to give those teachings the benefit of modern
methods.” — Theodicy, a. 148. Rosmini examines and analyses the fact of human knowledge, and obtains
the following results: — the notion or idea of
being or existence in general enters into, and is presupposed by, all our
acquired cognitions, so that, without it, they would be impossible. — this idea is essentially objective, inasmuch
as what is seen in it is as distinct from and opposed to the mind that sees it
as the light is from the eye that looks at it. — the idea is essentially true, because being
and truth are convertible terms, and because in the vision of it the mind
cannot err, since error could only be committed by a judgment, and here there
is no judgment, but a pure intuition affirming nothing and denying nothing. — by the application of this essentially
objective and true idea the human being intellectually perceives, first, the
animal body individually conjoined with him, and then, on occasion of the
sensations produced in him not by himself, the causes of those sensations, that
is, from the action felt he perceives and affirms an agent, a being, and
therefore a true thing, that acts on him, and he thus gets at the external
world, these are the true primitive judgments, containing the subsistence of
the particular being (subject), and its essence or species as determined by the
quality of the action felt from it (predicate) — reflection, by separating the essence or
species from the subsistence, obtains the full specific idea
(universalization), and then from this, by leaving aside some of its elements,
the abstract specific idea (abstraction). — the mind, having reached this stage of development,
can proceed to further and further abstracts, including the first principles of
reasoning, the principles of the several sciences, complex ideas, groups of
ideas, and so on without end, and, finally, — the same most universal idea of being, this generator
and formal element of all acquired cognitions, cannot itself be acquired, but
must be innate in us, implanted by God in our nature. Being, as naturally shining to our mind, must
therefore be what men call the light of reason. Hence the name Rosmini gives it of ideal being;
and this he lays down as the fundamental principle of all philosophy and the
supreme criterion of truth and certainty. This Rosmini believes to be the teaching of St
Augustine, as well as of St Thomas, of whom he was an ardent admirer and
defender. In the 19th century,
there are also several other movements which gain some form of popularity in
Italy, such as Ontologism. The main Italian son of
this philosophical movement is Vincenzo Gioberti, a metaphysician. Gioberti's writings are more important than his
political career. In the history of
Italian philosophy they stand apart. As the speculations of Rosmini-Serbati, against
which he wrote, have been called the last link added to medieval thought, so
the system of Gioberti, known as Ontologism, more especially in his greater and
earlier works, is unrelated to other modern schools of thought. It shows a harmony with the Roman Catholic faith
which caused Cousin to declare that Italian philosophy was still in the bonds
of theology, and that Gioberti was no philosopher. Method is with Gioberti a synthetic, subjective
and psychological instrument. Gioberti reconstructs, as he declares, ontology, and begins with
the ideal formula, the "Ens" creates ex nihilo the existent. God is the only being (Ens). All other things are merely existences. God is the origin of all human knowledge (called
lidea, thought), which is one and so to say identical with God himself. It is directly beheld (intuited) by reason, but
in order to be of use it has to be reflected on, and this by means of language. A knowledge of being and existences (concrete,
not abstract) and their mutual relations, is necessary as the beginning of
philosophy. Gioberti is in some
respects a Platonist. Gioberti identifies
religion with civilization, and in his treatise “Del primato morale e civile
degli Italiani” he arrives at the conclusion that the church is the axis on
which the well-being of human life revolves. In it Gioberti affirms the idea of the supremacy
of Italy, brought about by the restoration of the papacy as a moral dominion,
founded on religion and public opinion. In his later works, the “Rinnovamento” and the
“Protologia,” Gioberti is thought by some to have shifted his ground under the
influence of events. Gioberti’s first work
had a personal reason for its existence. A fellow-exile and friend, Paolo Pallia, having
many doubts and misgivings as to the reality of revelation and a future life,
Gioberti at once set to work with “La Teorica del sovrannaturale,” which was
his first publication. After this,
philosophical treatises follow in rapid succession. The “Teorica” is followed by “Introduzione allo
studio della filosofia.” In this work Gioberti
states his reasons for requiring a new method and new terminology. Here Gioberti brings out the doctrine that
religion is the direct expression of the idea in this life, and is one with
true civilization in history. Civilization is a conditioned mediate tendency to perfection, to
which religion is the final completion if carried out. It is the end of the second cycle expressed by
the second formula, the Ens redeems existences. Essays on the lighter and more popular subjects,
“Del bello” and “Del buono,” follow the “Introduzione.” “Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani” and
the “Prolegomeni” to the same, and soon afterwards his triumphant exposure of
the Jesuits, “Il Gesuita moderno,” no doubt hastens the transfer of rule from
clerical to civil hands. It is the popularity of
these semi-political works, increased by other occasional political articles,
and his “Rinnovamento civile d'Italia,” that causes Gioberti to be welcomed
with such enthusiasm on his return to his native country. All these works are perfectly orthodox, and aid
in drawing the liberal clergy into the movement which results since his time in
the unification of Italy. The Jesuits, however,
closed round the pope more firmly after his return to Rome, and in the end
Gioberti's writings are placed on the Index. The remainder of his works, especially “La
Filosofia della Rivelazione” and the “Prolologia,” give his mature views on
many points. Other Ontological
philosophers include Terenzio Mamiani, Luigi Ferri, and Ausonio Franchi. Augusto Vera is probably the greatest Italian
Hegelianist philosopher. It is during his studies,
with his cousin in Paris, that Vera comes to know about philosophy and through
them he acquires knowledge of Hegelianism and it culminates during the events
of the French Revolution. In England Vera
continues his studies of Hegelian philosophy. During his years in Naples, Vera maintains
relationships with the Philosophical Society of Berlin, which originally
consists of Hegelians, and keeps up to date with both the German and the French
Hegelian literature. Vera undertakes a close
commentary of Hegel's “Introduzione alla filosofia.” Much of Vera’s work on neo-Hegelian theories are
undertaken with Bertrando Spaventa. Some see the Italian Hegelian doctrine as
leading to Italian Fascism. Some of the most prominent philosophies and ideologies in Italy
also include anarchism, communism, socialism, futurism, fascism, and Christian
democracy. Both futurism and
fascism (in its original form, now often distinguished as Italian fascism) are
developed in Italy at this time. Italian Fascism is the official philosophy and ideology of the
Italian government. Giovanni Gentile is one
of the greatest Italian Idealist/Fascist philosophers, who greatly supports
Benito Mussolini. Gentile has a great
number of developments within his thought and career which define his philosophy: — the discovery of Actual Idealism in his work
“Theory of the Pure Act” — the political favour
he felt for the invasion of Libya and the entry of Italy into The Great War. — the dispute with Benedetto Croce over the
historic inevitability of Fascism. — his role as education minister. — Gentile’s belief that Fascism can be made to
be subservient to his thought and the gathering of influence through the work
of such students as Ugo Spirito. Benedetto Croce writes that Gentile "holds the honour of
being the most rigorous neo–Hegelian in the entire history of Western
philosophy and the dishonour of being the official philosopher of Fascism in
Italy." Gentile’s philosophical
basis for fascism is rooted in his understanding of ontology and epistemology,
in which he finds vindication for the rejection of individualism, acceptance of
collectivism, with the state as the ultimate location of authority and loyalty
to which the individual found in the conception of individuality no meaning
outside of the state (which in turn justifies totalitarianism). Ultimately, Gentile foresees a social order
wherein opposites of all kinds are not to be given sanction as existing
independently from each other; that 'publicness' and 'privateness' as broad
interpretations were currently false as imposed by all former kinds of
Government; capitalism, communism, and that only the reciprocal totalitarian
state of Corporative Syndicalism, a Fascist state, could defeat these problems
made from reifying as an external that which is in fact to Gentile only a
thinking reality. Whereas it was common in
the philosophy of the time to see conditional subject as abstract and object as
concrete, Gentile postulates the opposite, that subject is the concrete and
objectification is abstraction (or rather; that what was conventionally dubbed
"subject" is in fact only conditional object, and that true subject
is the 'act of' being or essence above any object). Gentile is a notable philosophical theorist of
his time throughout Europe, since having developed his 'Actual Idealism' system
of Idealism, sometimes called 'Actualism.' It is especially in which his ideas put subject
to the position of a transcending truth above positivism that garnered
attention; by way that all senses about the world only take the form of ideas
within one's mind in any real sense; to Gentile even the analogy between the
function and location of the physical brain with the functions of the physical
body were a consistent creation of the mind (and not brain; which was a
creation of the mind and not the other way around). An example of Actual Idealism in Theology is the
idea that although man may have invented the concept of God, it does not make
God any less real in any sense possible as far as it is not presupposed to
exist as abstraction and except in case qualities about what existence actually
entails (i.e. being invented apart from the thinking making it) are
presupposed. Benedetto Croce objects
that Gentile's "pure act" is nothing other than Schopenhauer's will. Therefore, Gentile proposes a form of what he
calls 'absolute Immanentism' in which the divine is the present conception of
reality in the totality of one's individual thinking as an evolving, growing
and dynamic process. Many times accused of
Solipsism, Gentile maintains his philosophy to be a Humanism that senses the
possibility of nothing beyond what was contingent; the self's human thinking,
in order to communicate as immanence is to be human like oneself, makes a
cohesive empathy of the self-same, without an external division, and therefore
not modeled as objects to one's own thinking. Meanwhile, anarchism, communism, and socialism,
though not originating in Italy, take significant hold in Italy with the
country producing numerous significant figures in anarchist, socialist, and
communist thought. In addition,
anarcho-communism first fully forms into its modern strain within the Italian
section of the First International. Italian anarchists often adhere to forms of
anarcho-communism, illegalist or insurrectionary anarchism, collectivist
anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, and platformism. Some of the most important figures in the
anarchist movement include Italians such as: Errico Malatesta, Giuseppe Fanelli, Carlo Cafiero, Alfredo M. Bonanno, Pietro Gori, Luigi Galleani, Severino Di Giovanni, Giuseppe Ciancabilla, Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, and Sacco and Vanzetti. Other Italian figures, influential in both the
anarchist and socialist movements, include Carlo Tresca and Andrea Costa, as
well as the author, director, and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. Antonio Gramsci remains an important philosopher
within Marxist and communist theory, credited with creating the theory of
cultural hegemony. Italian philosophers are
also influential in the development of the non-Marxist liberal socialism
philosophy, including: Carlo Rosselli, Norberto Bobbio, Piero Gobetti, Aldo Capitini, and Guido Calogero. Many Italian left-wing activists adopt the
anti-authoritarian pro-working class leftist theories that become known as
autonomism and “operaismo.” Giuseppe Peano is one of the founders of analytic philosophy and
contemporary philosophy of mathematics. Recent analytic philosophers include: Mauro Dorato, Carlo Penco, Francesco Berto, Emiliano Boccardi, Alessandro Torza, Matteo Plebiani, Luciano Floridi, Luca Moretti, and, among the
Griceians, Anna Maria Ghersi and Luigi Speranza. See also: List of Italian philosophers References: See: Jerry Bentley, “Humanists and holy writ” Princeton University Pico Yates, Frances A. “Giordano
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition” University of Chicago Press Moschovitis Group
Inc, Christian D. Von Dehsen and Scott L. Harris, “Philosophers and religious
leaders,” The Oryx Press, 117. Definition of MACHIAVELLIAN merriam-webster Skinner,
Quentin “Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction.” OUP Oxford. Christie,
Richard; Geis, Florence L. “Studies in Machiavellianism.” Academic Press. “The Enlightenment throughout
Europe"history-world “History of Philosophy
70". Maritain “Augusto Vera". Facoltà Lettere e Filosofia “La rinascita hegeliana a Napoli" Ex-Regno
delle Due Sicilie. “L'ESCATOLOGIA
PITAGORICA NELLA TRADIZIONE OCCIDENTALE". RITO SIMBOLICO ITALIANO. “Idealismo. Idealistas" Enciclopedia GER. Benedetto Croce, “Guide to Aesthetics,” Tr. by Patrick Romanell,
"Translator's Introduction," The Library of Liberal Arts, The Bobbs–Merrill
Co., Inc. Runes, Dagobert, ed.,
Treasure of Philosophy,” “Gentile, Giovanni" Nunzio Pernicone, "Italian Anarchism",
AK Press. RELATED ARTICLES: Giovanni Gentile, Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist
philosopher. Bertrando Spaventa,
Italian philosopher. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Hegelians and Croceans in the Oxford
I knew.” Grice, “Speranza, our man in Itealian philosophy!” – “Surely he’ll be
offended if you say that!” – Anna Maria Ghersi e Luigi Speranza, “IMPLICATVRA.”
Luigi Speranza, “IMPLICATVRA,” The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria,
Italia. Luigi Speranza, “Grice, Gentile e la storiografia della filosofia
italiana.”
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